Due North
by Kailin
Summary: Severus and Hermione face sudden changes in their lives
1. Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Never say never. I swore I wouldn't write a sequel to 'Into the North', but two things happened: I was able to meet my Australian brit-picker in person eight months ago, and ended up re-reading the books and falling in love with the Potterverse all over again. Add to that the upcoming Fantastic Beasts movie, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the revelations from J.K. Rowling about the North American wizarding school and her mention of Native Americans, and I knew I had to continue the saga of Severus and Hermione in Canada.

If you've not read 'Into the North', it's probably a good idea to do so. It will explain how Severus ended up in the North Woods, and how he and Hermione became a couple.

And in case you think I'm somehow laying claim to these characters as my own… That's just plain silly!

" _Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the while I am being carried across the sky by beautiful clouds." —Ojibwa saying_

 _ **Chapter 1: Out of the Blue…Again**_

The potion was coming along swimmingly.

I watched with satisfaction as the gleaming pink fluid in the cauldron began to attain a greenish ring around its edges. For weeks I'd been working on a way to combine the Draught of Peace with Pepper-Up Potion. According to all the professional journals, Combination Portions were touted as THE hottest development in the Potions world, but there had been few successes so far. In this particular case, no one had ever been able to combine 'Peace and Pepper' without sparks, flames, minor explosions, or all three. But this time, with a buffer added at twelve hour intervals for four weeks straight, followed by the requisite three stabilizing binders, the outcome just might be different.

Caldwell Pharmaceutical Potions in Winnipeg – purveyors of my exceedingly effective insect repellant – was heavily invested in researching and developing Combination Potions, was in fact working on this very same potion. If I could solve the dilemma and be the first to patent it, Caldwell was likely to show up at my door, waving money under my nose once again. And I needed the money; after all, I was now a married man.

A year had passed since Hermione Granger had shown up unannounced on my doorstep, flooding me with various ministry forms and demanding that I follow the government mandate to patent my home-brewed insect repellant. I had been furious at this intrusion from my past, had dug in my heels at the thought of being beholden to a wizarding bureaucracy. Inexplicably, I ended up obtaining the patent, selling it, and falling in love with the bushy-haired messenger. BugAway – I still loathed the name Caldwell had given it – had been a rousing success so far in this, its first summer on the North American market. It was providing me with the one thing I'd been missing for thirteen long years: an income. I may never become wealthy on insect repellant, but at least I'm no longer forced to barter minor potions for food in Trapper's Bay in order to survive.

I say 'forced' because barter was the only way I'd survived up here in the North Woods of Ontario, Canada. When Hermione learned that I was giving magical potions to Muggles, she'd hit the roof, of course. Accepting that had stretched her tolerance of rule-bending almost to the breaking point.

The corners of my mouth quirked upwards. When the woman descended on me out of the blue last year, I could never have imagined that I would end up married to her. Throttling her or tossing her in the middle of the lake were more probable scenarios, but marrying her? Given what I'd seen of my parents' hideous marriage, I had never entertained any possibility of marital bliss. But Hermione had worked her way first into my life and then into my heart, and the past year had been a perpetual surprise to me. Sharing my life with the woman I loved, it turned out, was nothing like I expected.

I glanced at the clock and noted that it was still early; Hermione should be out of the shower by now. I would cast a Stasis Charm on the potion and then head upstairs. It was time for breakfast, and I was hungry. But before I could pull out my wand, Hermione appeared at the cellar doorway.

"I was just coming up," I said. "But since you're here, take a look. I added the buffer fifteen minutes ago, and so far it's looking quite satisfactory."

Hermione stepped inside, giving the cauldrons only a cursory glance. "It looks good."

"There were a few sparks at first, but it took less than thirty seconds to quiet down. I think I may have cracked it, finally," I said proudly. And then, when it became obvious that my wife's attention was quite clearly elsewhere, "What's wrong?"

"I need to talk to you, Severus." Hermione was nervously chewing on her bottom lip.

"All right." Something was definitely up.

"I – er - I cast a diagnostic spell on myself."

"Are you ill?"

"Ill? No."

"What, then?"

"I'm pregnant," she whispered.

I could feel my face freeze into an expression of utter disbelief. I tried desperately to pull a coherent thought out of the sudden maelstrom in my brain.

"You're pregnant," I repeated.

A faint nod.

"How did this happen?" I blurted. "And before you put your hands on your hips and say "Really, Severus?" you know perfectly well what I mean. I thought you were always careful!"

Hermione glared at me; her hands _had_ begun to wander toward her hips.

"I was always careful. You're not the only one with a Master's Certification in Potions, so please don't accuse me of not being able to brew a simple contraceptive!"

I forced myself to take a deep breath. After only three months of marriage, I had already grasped the notion that avoiding confrontational statements could head off full-fledged arguments. "I didn't say you couldn't brew a simple contraceptive. Perhaps there was a problem with the efficacy of one of the ingredients."

It was an unlikely scenario, and we both knew it. Hermione shook her head.

"I don't know what happened, Severus. I honestly don't know."

"And you're certain…" I said quietly.

"I'm certain."

"We've never even discussed having a child," I pointed out.

"It never occurred to me to bring up the subject. First I was putting my life back in order, and then you were getting established with Caldwell… I suppose we would have discussed it eventually, but I rather thought that for now, we were operating under the assumption that not having one was probably the best idea," Hermione said, her face a tense mask.

"Are you… happy about it?" I ventured with great caution.

"I don't know what I am. In shock, I guess. I don't expect you to be happy at this point, but please just don't be angry. I don't think I could bear it."

I pulled Hermione into my arms and held her close. This, at least, was better than staring each other down while trying to assimilate the news. We were going to have a child. I was going to be a father. I thought of the drunken and abusive lout that was Tobias Snape, and felt almost ill.

"I suppose that I could be no worse a father than my own…."

"I'm sorry, Severus." Hermione sounded teary now.

"I'm not angry," I said, surprising myself. "Stunned, yes. Angry, no."

A child. What would life be like with a child?

…

We tiptoed around each other all morning. I was at a loss for how to understand and accept this new change of circumstances, and Hermione was dealing with it no better than I. I went about my business, working on Peace-and-Pepper in the cellar, while she took the canoe out on the lake. The solitude of the lake had healed me of my burdens of anger and hatred a decade ago; last year, it had again worked its magic as Hermione faced the past demons of her role in Ronald Weasley's descent into madness and death.

In early afternoon, I was trying very hard to concentrate on my potion when I heard the scrape of aluminum against wood; Hermione was tying up to the dock. I walked out to meet her.

"Well," she said with a tremulous smile, "at least we have eight more months to figure out how to do this."

"Yes," I agreed, and we clung to each other. We weren't exactly laughing about the situation, but at least we weren't at loggerheads.

It was then that a droning noise caught my attention. I looked up into the southern sky and groaned aloud.

"No," I muttered, "not now, of all times!"

A small plane – that belonging to my landlord, Brady Lawford – hung low in the sky, coming in to land on the serene lake. "Of all the ill-begotten times he could show up unannounced, does it have to be right now? Sweet Merlin, I hope he's not planning on spending the night! I need to make sure the Stasis Charm on the potion is strong enough…"

"I'll help him tie up, you take care of the potion," Hermione offered.

I checked the charm, and had just turned to go back to the dock when I heard a loud bang behind me. The potion was ruined, weeks of hard work gone. I was on the verge of cursing a blue streak and throwing things before it occurred to me that I would inevitably have to curb my temper in the future with a child in the house. I Evanesco'd the remainder of my cauldron and my once-very-promising Peace-and-Pepper with only muttered obscenities.

Lawford didn't show up at the cabin very often anymore. He'd been the one to rescue me from a failed suicide attempt sixteen years earlier, had warmed me, fed me, then allowed me to stay on at the cabin as a sort of caretaker. Brady was a kind, good-hearted soul, and while both Hermione and I normally accepted his company without complaint, this was one time we would have gladly done without it.

After one pass the length of the lake, the float plane made a perfect landing. By the time it was cruising up to the dock, I had joined Hermione there.

"Cabin still standing?" she asked hopefully.

"Mostly," I grumbled. "Four weeks of nursing that bloody potion along… Here, I'll get the rope. "I caught the rope Lawford tossed toward us and secured the plane so it wouldn't drift away.

"Sebastian! Hermione! How are you all?" Brady Lawford climbed out of the plane with some effort.

My eyes widened in surprise as his wife exited the plane on the passenger side. That was a good sign; Marita Lawford never stayed the night at the cabin.

"Good to see you, Brady, Marita." We shook hands all around.

"I come bearing presents," Lawford announced, brandishing a cooler.

"Oh?"

"I think you'll like them." Marita flashed a mysterious smile.

"Tell you about it when we get inside." Brady started for the cabin, then stopped to take an expansive breath. "Ah… Smell that fresh pine air. Nothing like it!"

"How long can you stay?" Hermione asked, careful to phrase the question so it didn't sound like the surprise visit was unwelcome.

"Just a few hours. Front coming in, so we'll have to skedaddle by four. So, having any problems with the cabin?" Lawford wanted to know as he headed up the path.

"No. You would have heard about it if I had." When we came close to the cellar, I discretely cast a nonverbal charm to make sure that the door wouldn't creak open in the breeze, putting any debris that might remain on full display. The ruined potion might have been Vanished, but one could never be too careful.

"Good to hear, good to hear…" The Lawfords passed by the cellar without incident.

"How are you, Brady?" Hermione asked.

It wasn't mere formality. The man looked older and thinner than the last time we saw him.

"Oh, could be worse. Let's sit out on the deck, shall we? It's such a great day."

We all climbed up to the deck, then pulled four Adirondack chairs together. Lawford dropped the cooler on a small table and opened the lid.

"Congratulations are in order," he announced. "Well, sort of."

My first thought was that somehow he had learned of Hermione's pregnancy in the past four hours, and then common sense finally caught up with me. "Congratulations?" I asked.

"Here's the deal." Brady produced four chilled wine glasses and a bottle of champagne from the cooler, along with a corkscrew. "I've got cancer."

Hermione gasped. "Oh, no! Is it – are you – do they –"

"— think I'm dying? I will if I don't get it taken care of. I've already had a treatment or two, and it's going to be a slow, rough process. The doctors are very optimistic, but that's the thing with that chemo stuff, isn't it? Nearly kills you before it makes you well."

"I'm so sorry!"

"Well, I'm a tough old bird, so I figure it'll take a hell of a lot to do me in." Brady grunted as he tried to manipulate the corkscrew into the cork.

"Can I help you with that?" I asked solicitously. Now that I had gotten a further look at Lawford, I could see that his usually thick white hair was much sparser under the baseball cap he wore.

"No, I've got it."

"If anyone can beat it, you can," Hermione offered, with what I'm sure she hoped wasn't misplaced optimism.

"Eventually, yeah. Marita won't let me die," Brady chuckled, nodding sideways towards his wife.

I understood. He had often made it clear to me that Marita was a very strong-willed woman. What Marita wanted, Marita got.

"He's going to be around a good long time," she agreed.

Finally, the cork came out of the bottle with a small, anti-climactic pop. Lawford filled the glasses, then passed them around. Hermione was staring at hers as though she'd never seen such a thing before.

"Something wrong?" Brady raised an eyebrow.

She shook her head. "No."

"I still don't understand why we're celebrating," I said. "So far you've not given us any reason to do so."

Marita laughed. "It does sound rather depressing, doesn't it?"

Lawford sank back into his Adirondack chair with a deep sigh and took a long sip from his glass.

"Well, here's the thing, Sebastian. What with getting older, and now with this cancer thing, I don't know how many more times I can make it up here. I'm pretty much out of the charter business now. And I've had this place for a lot of years and had wonderful times up here, but it's time to let it go. I'm selling the cabin."

I tried to breathe. Hermione and I had discussed this possibility on several occasions. As we were virtual squatters in Lawford's cabin, he of course had the right to dislodge us at any given time. But what if, we had fantasized, we could buy the place one day?

"What are you asking for it, Brady? I have a bit of money now. Is there any chance you would consider selling the cabin to us?"

Lawford shook his head. "The deal's basically done. I have some friends who've been after me for years to sell to them. They want to open a summer fishing lodge here, which would be a real good thing for the people in town. Provide more jobs for the area, you know."

"That's a good thing, of course," Hermione nodded agreement, but her disappointment was obvious. I'm sure mine was, as well.

"Hold on there, missy, let me finish. Sebastian, you've been a good friend all these years, and taken wonderful care of my cabin. And you haven't blown it to bits with your chemistry experiments down in the cellar, although I'll never understand how you have enough space to do anything but turn around in that little room," Brady chuckled.

I said nothing. Lawford had no way of knowing that a nicely placed Expansion Charm was responsible for turning what amounted to an unheated, poorly-lit closet into a functioning potions lab, and I wasn't about to start explaining my safety precautions now that the cabin was being sold out from under me.

"Anyway," the man went on, "I don't like the idea of leaving you two in the lurch, and Marita's about to have my hide about it… Well, why don't you take it from here, hon?"

Marita put down her glass. "Sebastian, I believe I spoke to you last year about my grandfather?"

"Yes." The previous autumn, we had hosted Brady and his wife for Thanksgiving dinner. After the meal, both Brady and Hermione were out of the room, leaving Marita and I alone. She happened to spot the owls Hermione and I owned sitting side by side on the deck railing, and then stunned me by inquiring point-blank if I was a wizard. Her grandfather, she told me, had been a wizard, a curiosity in her family tree of which Brady was completely unaware.

"I don't believe I mentioned that he owned property up here himself," she continued now. "I came up with him once or twice as a child. He passed away when I was sixteen."

"Oh?" Where was she going with this?

"When I came of age, I was told that he had left the property to me, in a manner of speaking."

"Where is it?" Hermione asked, curious.

"Not far, actually. It's midway between here and town, but off the road a ways."

I glanced over at Lawford. "Why didn't you build your cabin there if the land was already yours?"

Brady shook his head. "Remember, Marita's my second wife. I'd bought this land and built on it long before she and I ever met."

"Marita, what did you mean by your grandfather leaving it for you 'in a manner of speaking'?" Hermione asked carefully.

The woman smiled enigmaticaly. "The only stipulation mentioned in the will was that I should sell it to the right person at the right time. I think the time is right, don't you?"

"He must have been a crazy old coot," Lawford snorted. "What in the world was she supposed to make of that?"

"You're saying that you would sell us your grandfather's land." I wanted to be very sure I understood correctly.

Marita nodded. "I want to offer the property to you two, being as we're putting you out of your home."

They were actually putting us out of _their_ home, but I didn't quibble. "How much?" I asked, not daring to hope that we could afford it.

"A dollar."

I froze, speechless. Next to me, Hermione was equally stunned.

"A dollar?" she echoed.

"Yes, ma'am," Brady said, a smug expression on his face. "One thin loonie."

"Are you certain?" I said weakly.

"Absolutely."

I was aware that Hermione was looking at me excitedly, expectantly. The problem was that there had not been many occasions in my life when I'd been compelled to react to acts of generosity and kindness, and I was absolute rubbish when it came to gratitude.

"That's very – that's quite – quite decent of you," I managed.

"It's wonderful!" Hermione blurted, her delight making up for my own awkward reserve.

"Can you tell me more about the property?" I restrained myself from immediately plunging my hand into my pocket to pull out a dollar coin.

"It's a little over twelve acres," Marita began. "And –"

"It's got a good-sized lake on it," Lawford interrupted. "Not as big as this lake, of course," he waved an arm toward the large expanse of water behind him, "but still big enough to be loaded with fish. You can kinda see what's left of it from the air."

Hermione looked puzzled. "What's left of the lake?"

"No, what's left of the old guy's cabin. I know it's still there, because I can catch a glimpse of it from the air. I'm sure it's falling down by now though. But here's the weird thing: there's no way in there from the road. I don't know why the man would put up a cabin with no drive leading to it. I guess he didn't mind hiking through thick woods, but it sure wouldn't be my cup of tea. Come to think of it," Lawford said, frowning now, "how'd you get to it when you were a kid, hon?"

"Brady," Marita said, "could you check the plane? I believe I may have left the file with the paperwork there. I'm sure Sebastian and Hermione would like to look it over before they decide anything."

It sounded like a smooth ploy to get the man out of the room, and it was. As soon as the screen door closed behind Lawford's retreating back, Marita turned to us with the shining eyes of a conspirator.

"We tried to sell the property once a few years back. It was a complete fiasco. We had the deed but the Land Office knew absolutely nothing about it, and the real estate agent couldn't even find the property to evaluate it and come up with a selling price. Do you think it was because Granddad was a wizard?"

I nodded. "There would be no record of wizarding real estate transactions in the non-wizarding sector. If the deed was registered only in wizarding archives, it would be unsaleable to anyone else. And in addition, it was probably made unplottable on your maps."

"So Granddad's instructions were right: to sell the property to the right person at the right time. He knew what he was doing, didn't he?"

"So it would seem."

"I really don't know what to say." Hermione's eyes were moist. "We can't possibly thank you enough!"

Marita reached over and squeezed her hand. "No more of that. This is a perfectly wonderful solution for both of us. Now why don't you two tell me what I must do in order to make the sale legal for you?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "We'll probably need to go to our Ministry in Toronto and check into it."

"Would it help if I wrote a letter, something along the order of 'I hereby sell this property to Sebastian and Hermione Snow for the price of one dollar'?"

"Let's start there," I said. "We'll have to check further and let you know what else is required."

While Lawford was still rummaging about in the plane for the file of paperwork, Hermione found a piece of paper and pen for Marita. The woman wrote the statement she'd suggested and signed as the heir of her grandfather, Thaddeus Dowd. Hermione and I signed below.

"Just out of curiosity," Hermione said, "how did you get to the cabin when you were little, Marita?"

"I honestly don't remember. It just seemed like one minute we were on a road and the next, we were at the cabin. Was it magic, do you suppose?" She looked hopeful.

"It just might have been," I told her.

Lawford returned, looking immensely pleased with the way things had turned out. "You know, Sebastian, you said you have some money now – from the insect repellant, right? Look, I don't know how much it'll cost you to tear down that old cabin and put up a new one, and you'll certainly need to cut a road in there, but I can loan you some money at a very low rate. You could put up a little cabin to start with and add extra space on as you go. We certainly don't expect you to live in a tent out there."

"We won't be staying in a tent, I promise you," Hermione said, looking horrified. I felt a smirk spread over my face.

"I have the papers here," Brady began, opening the folder.

"After we have a toast, dear." Marita sighed impatiently and lifted her glass. "To beating cancer and your new home!"

I raised my glass and drank. Hermione raised hers as well, but only pretended to drink from it. Lawford noticed.

"Champagne not to your liking, Hermione?"

She blushed. "Actually, we have some news of our own. I just learned that I'm pregnant. I'm not certain if I'm meant to be drinking alcohol right now."

"You don't say! I don't believe it! That's fantastic!" Brady put down his glass at once and pounded me enthusiastically on the shoulder. I clenched my teeth; cheap land or not, I don't take well to enthusiastic Muggles invading my personal space.

"We're trying to adjust to the news," Hermione said, in a rather blatant piece of understatement.

"What wonderful timing!" Marita enthused. "I knew this cabin sale was meant to be! You'll have a new home for your new baby!"

"Perfect timing," Lawford declared. "Of course, I never had any kids of my own, but I'm sure you two will make wonderful parents."

I couldn't help but wonder what business a man with no children had in telling me that this I would be a wonderful parent?


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2: The Unexpected Offer**_

Lawford's plane had barely cleared the surface of the lake before I Accio'd my broom (cleverly Muggle-disguised as, of all things, a broom) and Hermione and I set out to inspect the property that Marita Lawford had basically given us.

I studied the aviation map Brady had provided. He had drawn a red circle around a lake some four miles away, a rough estimation of our new property. I tapped the map lightly with my wand. "There. At least we know where the lake is. That should suffice until we get more specific information from the Ministry. Ready?" I swung a leg over the broom and looked pointedly at my wife.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Hermione sighed, climbing on behind me and wrapping her arms tightly around my waist.

"I will never comprehend how a witch of your caliber can be so squeamish about riding a broomstick," I muttered as I pushed off from the ground.

"I'm sorry, I'm just not fond of heights. Of course, it may have to do with having been forced to ride on a hippogriff and a blind dragon and a thestral I couldn't even see…"

"Your fear of heights is your own fault then."

"And how, exactly, do you figure that, Severus?"

"It's due to your poor choice of friends. If you hadn't insisted on being friends with Potter, none of that would have happened."

Hermione's reply was lost in the wind as we flew parallel to the town road.

In truth, I rarely used my broom. The only place I ever go is to Trapper's Bay, and I always Apparate a mile outside of town, walking the rest of the way. But being as we were unsure of the lay of the land – literally – it seemed safer to fly now and Apparate later.

Some ten minutes into our flight, I spotted the lake to the west, along with the hint of a cabin roof peeking out from the trees. I steered the broom towards the shore of the lake and we landed smoothly.

"I noticed that the lake has a lot of inlets, but no long, straight stretch," Hermione commented. "I don't think it's large enough for a plane to land on."

"Which is a definite mark in its favor." I stood staring out over the water for a long moment. No, the lake was nowhere near as large as the one we were leaving, the one that had helped heal my wounded soul. On the other hand, it was our very own lake, one we didn't have to share with anyone.

I put an arm around my wife's shoulders and hugged her close, then steered us around one hundred eighty degrees to survey the remains of Thaddeus Dowd's cabin. It appeared to be in surprisingly good condition. Based on Lawford's assumption that the place would be falling down, I had thus assumed that roof and walls would be caved in with vegetation devouring it. And I remembered why I hadn't lived this long by assuming.

"It seems to be in rather decent shape, doesn't it?" Hermione commented, echoing my thoughts.

"Amazingly so." The cabin was sorely in need of repairs, that much was certain. Some of the windows were broken, and the roof was sagging a bit and missing a number of shingles. An enclosed porch, whose screens were more than a bit rusty and whose door hung awkwardly from one hinge, graced the front elevation. But by-and-large, the house seemed much sturdier than I'd expected. Just to be on the safe side, I cast a few Strengthening charms, and Hermione and I crept carefully onto the porch. I tried the door; it was locked.

" _Alohomora_ ," I murmured, and it swung open.

The main room was large and airy. What had been the kitchen and eating area lay to the right, while the living space was on the left. Stairs led to what was evidently a loft. And beyond the main room, a bathroom separated two small bedrooms.

"Seems like the place has seen its share of our forest friends," I commented, noting what appeared to be several animal nests of some sort around.

Hermione said nothing. She was wandering from room to room, an expression of utter bliss on her face; I knew immediately where her mind was headed.

"Severus, this is amazing! This has to be wizarding construction. There's no other reason for it to be in such good shape; nature should have reclaimed it long ago. I was expecting a shanty, weren't you? Do you think we can live here? Why tear it down if it's livable? I can still feel traces of magic in here, can't you?"

The string of questions reminded me forcibly of a much younger Miss Granger.

"Slow down, Hermione," I said warningly. "We'll need to consult with a reputable construction company to make certain."

"But it does seems possible that we could make it our home, doesn't it?" she asked wistfully.

"Possible," I admitted. "When Brady mentioned that there was a cabin here, I had thought to patch it up and use it for the lab. But if this structure is sound, we could live here and set up a small outbuilding for that."

"It would definitely be safer having the lab at a distance, since we'll have a child to consider now."

With the excitement of learning that I was a landowner, with a potentially usable house to boot, I had temporarily forgotten about the pregnancy. Remembering it now brought a fresh wave of shock and reality, and explained the starry-eyed expression on Hermione's face.

She was building a nest.

…..

We lay in bed that night, staring at the darkened ceiling.

"Yesterday, life was routine. Ordinary. And now, twenty-four hours later, we've lost a home, gained a home, and are going to be parents. How is this possible?" I asked.

"I don't know." Hermione's voice was soft in the darkness. "I've been thinking the same thing."

There was silence as we both considered our situation. Finally, I said, "Are you well? Everything has happened so fast, it hadn't even occurred to me to ask until now. Do you have morning sickness? Cravings?"

"The only thing I noticed happened this morning. I wasn't nauseated per se, but when you got out of bed and jarred it slightly, I was just the tiniest bit queasy. That was one of the reasons I did the diagnostic spell on myself. And as far as cravings, I don't think those come until much later. At least from what I remember of Ginny Potter's pregnancies."

"You were afraid I would be angry," I said. I hated that; it reminded me too much of my father lashing out in anger as my mother cowered before him.

"I was quite sure you wouldn't be pleased," Hermione said drily.

And of course I had reacted poorly at first, blaming her for everything. It was a brief flash of the bitter man I had once been.

"I'm sorry that I reacted as I did."

"It was a shock, Severus. Don't worry about it. I think that there will be quite a lot of adjustments for both of us."

"Do you want a boy or a girl?" I ventured carefully.

"Oh. I don't know. I don't want a girl if she turns out to be some vapid thing only interested in boys and makeup and clothes. And I don't want a boy if he's a horrid, obnoxious bully. I suppose I just want a child who is bright and well-adjusted and loves to learn."

"Rather like you," I pointed out.

"And you," she retorted.

I snorted at that. "I was never well-adjusted."

"But our child will be."

I could only hope she was right. Perhaps my legacy might be just a bit brighter than I'd ever dared dream.

….

We decided to visit the Ministry of Magic offices in Toronto the next day. We could complete the transfer of the cabin deed, and their Citizens' Information Bureau would be able to point us in the right direction in contacting a wizarding construction firm. In addition, Hermione wanted a list of midwifery witches so that she could begin receiving care.

"You're certain that Apparating isn't a problem for you?" I asked her with a frown.

"I've never known of any restrictions for pregnant women," she said. "And anyway, we're not connected to a Floo Network and I have no intention of riding a broomstick all the way there."

"And I have no intention of flying you there on a broom. You came close to strangling me when we flew to see the new property yesterday."

"I did nothing of the sort," she said primly. "My hands were around your stomach the whole time."

"Which explains the bruising on my ribs."

We Apparated to the Welcome Center of the Canadian ministry. Instantly, the din of the big city assailed our senses. Hermione wrinkled her nose.

"I'd forgotten how noisy it is," she sighed.

"And your friend Potter wonders why we live where we do? I'll take the North Woods any day." Harry Potter thought Hermione had taken leave of her senses when she'd quit her Ministry job to move in with me in the middle of nowhere. We approached the Welcome Center Help Desk, where a smartly-dressed young witch smiled cheerfully at us.

"May I help you?"

"We need information on construction companies," I said.

"Construction for what purpose?" the witch chirped. "Residential? Industrial?"

"Residential."

"And where in the Commonwealth do you live?"

"In rural Ontario, about ten miles outside Trappers' Bay."

"Trappers' Bay?" She looked clueless.

"Which is about fifty miles from Sioux Lookout. Which," I added, when she continued to appear confused, "is about four hundred miles northwest of Thunder Bay."

"Ah." Recognition dawned. The witch raised her wand and immediately two pamphlets sprang from cubbyholes behind her desk. "There you go."

"Just these two?" I asked skeptically.

"They supply your region with all your construction needs," she said. "If you would like information about companies in the far west or the Maritime Provinces, I can certainly give you that, but it's not very likely that they would be interested in working with you."

"I see." I nodded my understanding. "Also, my wife needs a list of midwives."

The young witch looked at Hermione, and then at me, and somehow managed not to laugh.

"Certainly. Midwives serving the same area? One moment…" She waved her wand once more, and another piece of parchment flew in our direction. "Anything else?"

"Yes. We bought a piece of property through the non-magic heir of a wizard. We need to find out what we have to do to complete the sale."

"That would be the Recorder of Deeds Office. Twelfth floor."

"Thank you." I led Hermione away and we stood in front of a bank of lifts off the Ministry lobby. Swarms of Canadian bureaucrats and wizarding citizens, who looked remarkably like British bureaucrats and wizarding citizens, swirled around us. I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, and we'd only been here five minutes.

"This reminds me too much of when I used to work here," Hermione said nervously.

"Are you sure you don't care to visit the Patent Office? I'm sure your Alma Hobbs would be delighted to see you again," I teased. Hermione loathed her former job and supervisor with a passion.

"Not in this lifetime!"

The elevator arrived and we took it to the twelfth floor. Stepping out into the hallway, we spotted a door in the midst of a wall of pink marble. The door stood partly open, the lettering on it proclaiming, 'Recorder of Deeds Office. Please Take a Number and Wait Patiently'.

I gritted my teeth. I had spent too many years in the solitude of the North Woods to put up with the foolishness of waiting for someone to help us in their own good time. The number we claimed from the reception desk was ninety-eight; a nearby counter of sorts informed us that number eighty-five was currently being served. We walked over to the waiting chairs, Hermione in a much cheerier mood than me.

I eyed the people serving the customers. "Perhaps a Confundus charm would expedite matters," I muttered, and then my wife pointed out the sign in front of the waiting area:

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT TRYING A CONFUNDUS CHARM TO ADVANCE IN LINE

I seethed quietly.

Finally, after what seemed an interminable time (although Hermione was making noises about how the wait wasn't so long after all), we were ushered into the office of one Norwood Simonelli. He greeted us with the usual insincere bureaucratic sentiments, then glanced perfunctorily at the original deed and verifying letter that Marita Lawford had given us. And scowled.

"One dollar?" he said incredulously. "You bought twelve acres of land for one dollar?"

"One dollar," I said.

Norward actually sniffed in disapproval, muttering something about fairness and housing prices and neighborhoods going to hell in handbaskets. Still, he took an enormous rubber stamp and applied it to both pieces of paper. He then brandished his wand and waved it at the documents.

"Transaction noted and transferred to the ledger," he grumbled, putting the stamped papers in an Out Box. "Pay ten Nor-Ams at the Cashier's window."

"I would like a copy of our deed, and we'll also need a plat map with the specifications of our property." I wasn't going to let him off that easily.

Norwood sighed audibly as he retrieved the deed and waved his wand one more time; a duplicate of the document fluttered toward me. "You can request a plat map at the Specifications Department down the hall. That'll be an additional ten Nor-Ams at the Cashier's window."

"Thank you for your time," I said somewhat snidely. I could tell Hermione was giving me The Look, but I ignored it.

We located the Specifications Department – we were number fifty this time, number forty-five being served – and received a topical map delineating our land. Then we proceeded to the Cashier's window (with twelve people ahead of us this time) and paid our fees of twenty Nor-Ams, the wizarding currency in use in Canada and the United States.

It was with extreme relief that Hermione and I took the lift back down to the lobby. Not only were we officially property owners with the paperwork to prove it, we could also leave the stifling big city and convoluted bureaucracy behind.

"Is there anything else you wish to attend to while we're in Toronto?" I wanted desperately to go home, but as long as I'd been forced into the crush of civilization, it would be convenient to kill more birds with one stone.

"A grocery, perhaps?" Hermione suggested. "There's one about three blocks away that I used to stop by when I worked here."

It was a reasonable request. We could load up on some specialty items that Neola usually had to order for us. Finally, food in hand, we took our places in the check-out line (Another line! It would be too soon before I made another trip outside the North Woods!), and waited our turn. Hermione, meanwhile, had gauged the wait and abruptly gone elsewhere in the store. She returned before it was our turn to pay, carrying something in a box.

"A ceramic loon?" I stared, mystified by the picture on the box. Why did we need a ceramic loon? We had the real thing within feet of our door.

"It's a biscuit jar," she corrected.

"Why do we need a biscuit jar?" I asked, perplexed. I wasn't a great fan of sweets.

"I thought – well – if you have a child, you need a biscuit jar," Hermione said, her cheeks pink.

I remembered a biscuit jar from my own childhood, a garish, chipped green crock that sat on a shelf above the cooker. It had nearly always remained empty. But there was something so hopeful, so determined in Hermione's eyes that I knew she would bake biscuits and keep the jar far better stocked than my mother.

We walked to the empty loading area behind the grocery store and Disapparated. Once home, I set about writing letters to the two construction companies, and Hermione wrote to the Northwestern Ontario Wizarding Midwifery Council. Manitou, my owl, and Hermione's owl Minerva took off to their respective destinations. By the end of the day, we had responses from both construction companies and the nearest midwives.

A representative from Clogsworth Construction ("We Work Magic in Your Life and your Home", according to their literature) arrived the following day at noon. He walked around our new old cabin, waved his wand a time or two, and pronounced it sound. Still, he said carefully, obviously not wanting to quash a possible deal, Clogsworth dealt primarily with new construction. Surely we wanted to tear down the old cabin and put up a beautiful new one, didn't we? He tossed out a few 'ballpark figures' – I had no idea what the term meant – and then tried to remain standing. Caldwell Pharmaceuticals had not yet sold nearly enough insect repellant for me to come to any terms whatsoever with the prices he so casually tossed out.

Fortunately, the rep from Livewell Building and Renovation was a much more reasonable man. He found the old cabin sound, and was intrigued enough by it that he wanted to check the company files to see if they had been the original builders. What, he asked, was our main aim in restoring the cabin? Seasonal use, as a getaway?

"We want to live here," I said simply. "It doesn't have to have the latest fancy bells and whistles, but it needs to be clean and warm and functional."

"Gotcha." The rep, who went by the name of Douglas, nodded in understanding. "Let me do a thorough walkaround, make some notes, take some measurements? For remodeling jobs, we typically come up with three offers, based on how much you're willing to spend or how fancy you want it. I can have it written up for you in three days. How's that?"

"Perfect," I said. "And also, we're going to want a small outbuilding to serve as a Potions lab."

"Potions, huh?" Douglas shook his head. "I was terrible in Potions at Ilvermorny. I can Transfigure a saw horse into a real one with one hand tied behind my back, but don't ask me to stir a cauldron!"

We agreed that Potions-making was not everyone's forte, and made plans to meet again at Lawford's cabin in three days' time.

The next day a Certified Witch-Midwife came to see Hermione. The woman took Hermione into the bedroom to examine her, asked her a series of health-related questions, and pronounced her perfectly fit to bear a child – whose arrival would take place around April first, apparently. She seemed personable enough, but Hermione was less effusive in her assessment.

"I know she works with five other midwives, and I suppose I'll be meeting them all in due course, but I really didn't care for her much. They all rotate call for births, so hopefully I'll find one in the group that I like." She paused, thumbing through the variety of pamphlets the witch-midwife had given her. "This is very real, isn't it? The pictures in here are… quite explicit."

For one horrifying moment I thought she was going to insist that I take a look at them as well, but Hermione merely ambled away, her brow furrowed at the prospect of what was going to happen to her body.

Life was definitely changing.

 _Author's Note: Yes, the first thing I bought, after finding out I was pregnant, was a cookie jar._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3: A Place to Call Home**_

With life in flux, I had gotten virtually no brewing done since Brady's visit. The Peace-and-Pepper project was literally on the back burner until I had ample time to devote to it. And it was pointless to delve into creating any potion where lengthy processing was involved, since I didn't want to relocate a counter-full of simmering cauldrons when moving day came. I did, however, manage a batch of Calming Draught which I had promised to Neola at the General Store. I bottled it and prepared to take it to town.

"Can I tag along?" Hermione asked, putting down her quill. Her own current project, that of writing a paper on the potential uses of charms to enhance potion production and development, was unaffected by our upended existence.

"Of course."

"Great. I could use a change of scene." My wife had become tolerant of the fact that I supplied minor potions to Muggles in town, although it had nearly ruined her law-abiding little soul to do so.

We set off in late morning. Neola, the proprietor, was always glad to see us. She had taken a motherly-sort of interest in me when I'd first begun living in Lawford's cabin, despite the fact that we were the same age. When I had initially eaten my way through whatever food remained in Brady's larder, she had steered me to the town food bank, and later allowed me to barter my first potion for several cans of beans. I'm sure she thought that initial Pepper-Up potion was nothing more than overenthusiastically-touted colored water, but she – and then the rest of the town, as word of mouth spread – discovered it to be quite effective. The rest was history: I had an ample food supply, as long as I could keep the minor potions coming.

"Hermione! Snow!" Neola, a large Ojibwa woman with a long braid of still-black hair streaming down her back, beamed as the two of us came through the door. "How are you? I haven't seen you in a week or more!" She gave Hermione a hug, but knew better than to try it with me.

"We're fine, Neola," Hermione said. "How have you been?"

"Busy. Getting ready for Powwow in two weeks. My oldest _nooshenh_ Kara is a Jingle Dancer this year, and she's so excited; she's been working on her costume for weeks. Will you two be able to make it?"

"Of course," Hermione said.

I sighed. The annual Powwow was a pleasant enough festival of Ojibwa culture, but I usually avoided it. I'd gone once some years earlier and decided never to return, although it wasn't my innate dislike of social gatherings that kept me away. Several people in town, Neola included, were quite eager that I set up a booth to sell my potions to visitors. While trading potions for food was a matter of survival, actually _selling_ potions to Muggles (which included not only the townspeople, but the many outsiders who descended on Trappers' Bay for Powwow) was a direct violation of wizarding law. Others might see the difference between trading and selling as nebulous at best, but as far as I was concerned it was the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony.

Neola beamed at us. "You've not been before, have you, Hermione?"

"No. I'm looking forward to it."

"I don't suppose, Sebastian, that I could persuade you to –" Neola began.

"No," I said flatly.

"You'd make a boatload of money with your cures," she wheedled.

"Speaking of which, here's the relaxation tonic you requested," I said before she could launch another attempt to persuade me. Hermione, meanwhile, wandered off to one of the small store's three aisles to peruse the shelves.

"Wonderful," Neola said, happily taking the bag of Calming Draught from me. "And I've already had a number of requests for your cold and flu tonic. The season's coming up soon, you know. Say, there've been rumors flying… Is it true that Brady Lawford is selling his cabin?"

"It's true," I said.

"But what will you and Hermione do? There are a couple of places available in town, if you're interested." She looked suddenly worried.

"The situation's been solved, Neola. Mrs. Lawford's grandfather owned a cabin about halfway between here and Brady's cabin. She's selling it to us at a very reasonable price." I failed to add just how reasonable the price was.

Neola looked confused. "There's another cabin between here and Lawford's? I don't think I ever knew that. I don't recall seeing a road…"

"Badly overgrown," I countered, adding, "It's been unused for many years."

"Unused? Must be a shambles, then. Is it livable? Will you be needing help with the renovations? My _ningnis_ is quite talented at carpentry and plumbing and that sort of thing."

"I have someone taking a look at it," I said vaguely.

"Oh. Well, let me know if you need a hand. And Stanley's always available, if you're desperate," she said with a snort of laughter.

I smiled politely. Stanley, Neola's husband, was notoriously unskilled at anything involving manual labour.

Suddenly, there was the sound of breaking glass from nearby.

"Oh, Daniella!" said an angry female voice from the middle aisle of the store. "I told you not to touch!"

"What now?" Neola sighed. She hustled around from behind the counter and headed for the far aisle.

I trailed behind her, curiosity getting the better of me.

A woman stood there next to a toddler, who had either dropped or thrown a jam jar to the floor. The jar must have struck the floor at just the wrong angle, for there was broken glass and spilled jam everywhere. Immediately, the little girl plunged a curious hand into the sharp, gooey mess. She began to wail just as Hermione rounded the corner to see what was going on.

"Daniella's broken a bottle of jam, Neola," the woman said, looking around for a way to clear the debris and calm the now-screaming child. "I think she's cut herself. Do you have some paper towels?"

The woman's arms, I noted, were full of a smaller, blanket-wrapped bundle. She took one look at Hermione and thrust the bundle toward her. "Here, can you hold Steven while I get her cleaned up?"

Hermione's eyes widened as the woman shoved the infant unceremoniously into her arms.

"Oh, uh…" she spluttered, awkwardly taking the baby and then trying to adjust so that she had a better grip. "Er…"

Neola, meanwhile, had grabbed a roll of paper towels off a shelf from the next aisle and ripped the plastic covering away. "Bathroom's in back, off the storeroom," she told the mother.

"Thanks. _Honestly,_ Daniella!" The woman rushed her daughter away, leaving Hermione staring wide-eyed at the sleeping infant in her arms.

Neola crouched down and began carefully scraping up the glass and jam.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I put in.

"Tell you what, Sebastian, why don't you get the trashcan from behind the counter? And there's a dustpan and brush there too."

"Of course." I found the items she requested with no problem.

"I'll have this cleaned up in a jiffy," Neola commented cheerfully.

Hermione tentatively jiggled the baby in her arms as little Daniella's howls from the bathroom dropped in volume. "I don't know how mothers do it," she admitted. "Watching one child is hard enough, but two?"

Neola chuckled. "You just do whatever you have to, Hermione. Why do people who have no children always think it is so difficult?"

"It looks very intimidating."

"Nobody knows how to do it until you become a mother. The baby arrives and suddenly you can do it. It's like magic."

"Magic?" Hermione repeated warily. I could tell she was hoping that part of her magical education had gone missing, and could be rectified by a trip to a library.

"Well," Neola snorted, "that isn't to say that you don't make mistakes. Somehow, babies manage to grow up and thrive despite what we do to them." She glanced up at Hermione and grinned. "And look at you! That baby's as happy as a clam there. You're a natural."

"Really?" There was the faintest hint of hope in Hermione's voice.

Neola scraped the last of the broken glass into the dustpan and wiped the remainder of jam away. She rose to her feet, grimacing as her knees made some unpleasant popping noises. "This year, I'm definitely losing thirty pounds, minimum. Oh, that's the one thing about having kids that no one tells you, Hermione."

"What?"

"That once you've had a child, you never get the same body back!" She shook with laughter as she headed back to the counter.

I could see Hermione's face freeze into an expression of shock. "You don't?"

"Oh, I suppose most women lose the weight, but your body's never quite the same."

The bell over the store door tinkled just then, admitting a new customer to claim Neola's attention. Hermione was left to cope with the images of awkward body alterations on her own. Suddenly the baby began squirming and squawking his displeasure. It was evident that he was working up to a major scream of indignation. The look of fear on Hermione's face was quite at odds with typical Gryffindor bravado.

"What do I do?" she asked me, panicked, jiggling the baby up and down more vigorously.

She was asking _me_?

"Daniella, slow down! Honestly, you'll be into something else next!" As the little girl raced full-tilt back into the room, the mother trailed behind, shaking her head wearily. She paused in front of Hermione. "Here, I'll take him back."

Hermione nearly sagged with relief as the woman reclaimed her son, who suddenly became perfectly contented.

"Thanks," the woman told her, as calmly as if she frequently made a habit of dropping her child into a stranger's arms. "Daniella, no. No candy!"

Hermione pushed past me and nearly stumbled out the door. Neola saw her go and frowned.

"Is she all right, Sebastian?" she asked.

I merely nodded and followed after my wife. I found Hermione leaning against the wall of the health clinic across the street. She looked utterly wretched.

"What if I can't do this, Severus?" she cried. "What if I'm absolute rubbish at being a mother? What if we're making a horrible, horrible mistake? You can get a divorce if a marriage goes bad, but you can't give a baby back!"

Of course, I knew nothing about raising children either. All I could do was parrot Neola's words.

"I think there must be truth in what Neola said, Hermione. I'm sure we'll manage."

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she said miserably. "One minute I'm as thrilled as can be and the next, I'm afraid our life is ruined forever!"

"Hormones," I told her, as though I was a great authority on the subject. Hermione must have suddenly doubted the wisdom of coming to me for consolation, because she shot me a startled look. "At least, that's what I've always heard," I finished lamely.

Teary-eyed now, she nodded and abruptly launched herself into my arms.

"I can't do this alone, Severus," she sniffed.

"You don't have to."

….

As summer gave way to autumn, I received a message from Brady Lawford via Neola in Trapper's Bay. Cancer treatments were proceeding and the deal on his cabin had been finalized, he said; a clause in the contract permitted Hermione and I to continue living there until the end of the year. In addition, I could expect various land surveyors and contractors to appear around the property from time to time, but they were unlikely to need inside the cabin for anything. I sighed and dismantled my wards and Muggle-repelling charms.

Hermione had calmed down in the weeks following the incident in the store. It was the realization that life would march on as usual for another seven months that did it, rather than any sudden spurt of confidence in her mothering abilities. When we finally shared our news with Neola, the woman was excited beyond belief.

"I was just pleased when you were able to find a lovely woman to share your life with, Sebastian," she gushed, hands clasped to her heart dramatically, "but this is icing on the cake! A baby for you two! This is so wonderful!"

She was horrified, however, to learn that Hermione would not be going to Sioux Lookout to have the baby in hospital, as was typical of the local women. Hermione reassured her that she had a midwife all lined up, and would be well looked after. Which raised the question: where was the nearest wizarding hospital? I assumed there was one in all the large cities, but it wouldn't hurt to inquire the next time the midwife came to visit.

Hermione sent an owl to Potter, breaking the news. Harry wrote back with the obligatory congratulations, although I suspect he probably did so with his head hanging over the toilet. I always walk a thin line when it comes to Hermione's friends; she knows full well that Harry and I will never be friends, and is satisfied with what amounts to mutual tolerance. Ginny Potter enclosed her own letter, an effusive three-page document demanding details and offering hand-me-down baby clothes and advice. Hermione was most happy to receive it. I think it made her feel more connected to the world of Witches Who Had Given Birth, as there were certainly none in our vicinity.

Meanwhile, renovation of the cabin was set to begin on October first.

"I'm glad that you'll be getting started before the snows begin," I told Douglas Dinsworth of Livewell Construction, when he returned with the written bid. "My wife and I are able to remain at our present home only until the end of the year."

The man stared at me as though I were from another planet. "You mean you've never seen wizarding construction in progress?"

I hadn't, of course. The house on Spinner's End was Muggle construction, and Hogwarts tended to repair itself if a simple Reparo didn't suffice. God knows I'd fixed enough blasted plaster and scorched beams in my years in the Potions classroom. There are not many things in the wizarding world for which I can claim total ignorance, but magical construction is definitely one of them.

"Well, I guarantee you that we move a lot faster than Muggle construction workers. All told, I suspect it'll take us about a week."

"A week!" Hermione gasped.

"It might take two weeks if you were building a home from scratch, but since we're merely renovating, it goes much faster."

That reminded me of the separate potions lab we wanted to build. "This contract does include the construction of the small outbuilding, correct?" I asked, suspiciously scanning the parchment that I was poised to sign.

Douglas nodded. "Of course. And that should take about day to build. Day and a half, maybe."

October first rolled around with an even bigger surprise. Hermione and I arrived early at the old cabin, only to find three elderly wizards contemplating the building. What in the world?

"Can I help you gentlemen?" I asked sharply.

"We are from Livewell Construction, sir." One of the men, who bore an unfortunate resemblance to Albus Dumbledore, wrung my hand. "Donny Balfour, at your service. And these other gentlemen are Sonny Tompkins and Edgar Everett. You would be, I presume, Mr. Snow?"

"I am, and –"

"And this would be the missus?"

Without even looking, I could tell Hermione's hackles were being raised at being addressed as such.

"Hermione Snow," she said, a definite frosty note in her voice.

"Right-o. The missus. Mighty fine place you have here, Mr. and Mrs. Snow. The boys and I built it ourselves some years back. Did a bang-up job, too. Look how well it's standing, even after all this time." The three of them paused to admire what remained of their handiwork.

"Fine work," I agreed, but I was impatient for the work to start. "Are the workmen on their way? It was my understanding that the renovations would begin today."

"And so they shall," Balfour nodded. "But there are no other workmen coming. We are your crew."

"You're the builders?" Hermione asked faintly. I suspect she was envisioning giving birth in a lean-to in the woods if things didn't work out.

"Excuse me," I said as a vague gnawing of panic struck, "but you're telling me that you three men are going to rebuild our cabin?"

"Yes, indeedy."

"The three of you."

The one named Edgar grinned at us. "Don't think we can do it, eh? Think we're a bunch of useless geezers?"

I did, but I wasn't about to admit it.

"Age," Sonny Tompkins drawled, "is a state of mind, Mr. Snow!"

With that, he hoisted a cloth sack off his shoulder and dropped it to the ground. It clattered noisily.

"Oh," Hermione breathed, recognition dawning. "All your supplies are in there, aren't they? I had a bag once –"

But Sonny could not care less about Hermione's famed beaded bag. He turned the sack upside down and emptied it of its contents. I just had time to spot tiny pieces of lumber and miniaturized tools before Edgar whipped out a wand and levitated everything en masse to the clearing next to the lake. Beams, planks, tools, pipes, construction material of every kind promptly sprang back to their original sizes.

"There we go," Donny Balfour said cheerfully. "Now why don't you and the missus move along and we'll get underway? There's going to be a lot of nails flying about shortly."

Hermione and I moved to a safe distance and waited. That apparently wasn't good enough.

"Go on now," Balfour said when he caught sight of our new location. "Leave it to us. The old place is in good hands."

I wanted to protest, to say that I was the homeowner and would watch if I damn well pleased. Hermione intervened.

"Let's go," she murmured. "I'm not sure I can bear to watch this anyway."

We left, only to creep back after supper that evening. Progress had indeed been made, for the cabin looked much sturdier. The roof had apparently been repaired and strengthened, and was partially covered with new shingles. The porch screens still hung at precarious angles, but were at least no longer rusty. And the old bathroom fixtures had been removed; the toilet, in fact, sat majestically at water's edge.

"We're going to have to put a road in, aren't we?" Hermione mused. "Neola's already wondering why no one in town knew this cabin was here. And Brady and Marita will come back some day and expect to visit."

"I suppose," I sighed.

With that, I took out my wand and experimentally blasted two pine trees away in the direction of the main road. Wood and pine needles rained down briefly, but it appeared that we could make gradual headway if we dealt with small sections of the woods at a time. Trappers' Bay might be a few miles distant, but someone was sure to notice if a half mile stretch of forest exploded in one fell swoop.

 _Author's Note: 'nooshenh' = grandchild; ningnis = nephew_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4: HomeMaking**_

Meanwhile, we had begun to debate what to do about furniture. Renovation of the cabin was taking the lion's share of the money I had earned from Caldwell so far; it was possible that we might have a roof over our heads and no place to sit down. Hermione wondered whether Brady and Marita might be amenable to selling us some of the pieces from the cabin, but it was my understanding that cabin sales generally included all furnishings, right down to the measuring cups in the kitchen drawer. Still, we made the trip to the Lawfords' Thunder Bay home – ostensibly to check on Brady, report on the renovations, and politely beg for furniture. Sweet Merlin, this made two trips to a city in the space of two months! I would clearly lose my mind before all this was over. I wanted my life back in order, and it couldn't happen soon enough.

"Brady's staying in the hospital overnight," Marita told as after giving us a gracious welcome. "He's doing well enough, but sometimes after a treatment they want to keep him there for observation."

Hermione and I settled onto the sofa.

"Of course," I agreed. "I'm sure it's best for him."

"How are things going with the cabin renovations?" Marita asked eagerly.

"Splendidly. The gentlemen doing the work expect to finish up in about three more days."

"That soon?" She was taken aback.

"It's wizarding construction," Hermione said gently. "It goes faster than Mu – traditional construction."

"I see. I always wish I had known more about my grandfather and his magic," Marita sighed. "But he was the only one in the family tree, as far as anyone knew, so it simply wasn't talked of."

Hermione nodded. "I'm the only one in my family as well. I have no siblings, and no one other than my parents knew. It would have raised quite a few questions if it was made general knowledge."

"Of course. Such a shame, though! Such marvelous talents to keep hidden."

"I know. But it's necessary."

"You have a beautiful view," I commented. I'd been looking out the living room window, admiring Lake Superior in the distance; the view here helped made up for the fact that the Marita and Brady lived in the city.

"It is nice, isn't it? Makes you feel like you're outdoors – which you're not, of course, which is why I love it!" She laughed.

"I was wondering," I said. "Does the sale of your cabin include the contents?"

"Furniture, you mean? Yes, it does. One of the new owners plans on living there in-season. Oh, dear…" Marita stared from me to Hermione and back again. "You now have a home but no furniture? Well, we have way too much stuff crammed in here as it is, so I'm sure I could donate some items to the cause."

It was on the tip of my tongue to thank her for whatever assistance she could give, but suddenly I railed at the idea of taking hand-outs. Another check from Caldwell would be arriving by year's end, and we would wait until then to furnish our new home. Meanwhile, we owned Hermione's cookie jar, and the quilt we'd won at Bingo in Trapper's Bay. And a cookery book, a fishing rod, and our Potions supplies.

"That's kind of you, Marita, but I'm sure that we'll be able to fill the house with no problem."

Hermione shot me a look which insinuated that my pride was dangerously close to getting in the way, then made things worse by inquiring if we might visit Brady at the hospital while we were in town. It sorely tested the limits of my patience to spend one more minute in Thunder Bay, but now that the words were out there, there was no taking them back. Luckily, Marita said that her husband felt quite poorly on the days he was required to remain at the hospital, and suggested that another day might be better.

I was relieved when we returned to our cabin. Hermione, however, was frowning.

"What was that about?"

"What was what about?"

"Marita could have found some things we could use in the new house. Why tell her we didn't need any help?"

I started up the path toward the cabin. "I'm tired of taking charity."

Hermione gripped my elbow, causing me to stop in my tracks. "Severus, you can pin your very existence on charity. If it hadn't been for Brady Lawford saving your life and allowing you to stay at the cabin all these years, you'd probably be dead. Not to mention the fact that Marita sold us our new home for all of a dollar! Why turn up your nose at generosity now, of all times?"

"I'm not turning up my nose at it," I bristled. "I just want to wait until we can buy things we really want, not take what someone else doesn't want."

"But you won't get another check from Caldwell until December thirty-first, and that's when we need to be out of Lawford's cabin."

"I suspect we can conjure whatever we need for a while –"

Suddenly, Hermione's eyes filled with tears. Too late, I remembered: hormones. At least her bottom lip hadn't protruded to full quiver, and for that, I was grateful. I tried to soften my approach.

"What would you prefer to do?"

"I have my emergency money," she volunteered carefully.

I refrained from pointing out the obvious. The emergency money, Hermione's small savings account left over from her stint at the Canadian Ministry, was sitting untouched in the event of, well, an emergency. It wasn't meant to be frittered away. I had spent over a decade of my life being penniless, and I had no desire to do so again.

"Surely we wouldn't need to spend all of it?" I hoped I sounded eager to compromise. Perhaps it wasn't out of the question to provide my pregnant wife with at least a comfortable bed…

"No, of course not. Do you think I give a toad's rump about having fancy furniture? You should know me better than that! But there's no reason we can't buy a few essentials, Severus. There are lovely resale shops that have good, used furniture and household items. It doesn't have to be expensive!"

Hermione looked so determined that I had no choice but to give in.

….

Within the week, the cabin and outbuilding were finished. The three elderly builders shook our hands and thanked us profusely for the opportunity to 'freshen up the old girl'. Douglas Dinsmore showed up to do the final inspection.

"It's a good, solid home," he told us, smiling with satisfaction. "The boys did a great job. They just love what they do, don't they? I'll have a devil of a time ever trying to get them to retire."

I truly could not imagine 'the boys' retiring to their rocking chairs. They seemed perfectly content to wave their wands, maneuvering boards and firing volleys of nails for years to come.

Dinsmore accepted my bank draught – the large amount requiring a personal visit to the nearest wizarding bank in Winnipeg (another bloody trip to a city!) – and gave us a celebratory bottle of wine.

"I'm sure you will be very happy here for many years to come."

I was sure we would. After he left, Hermione and I stood in the doorway to our empty little home and gazed out over the little lake. The trees, clad in their autumn colors, gleamed in the sun.

"We need a canoe," she blurted.

"What?"

"We need a canoe! We have a lake of our very own, and no canoe! And a dock! I know we can fish from the shore, but it's so much easier with a dock!"

I could feel the contented smile freeze on my face.

The following day, Hermione went into town while I transferred my cauldrons to the new shed and lovingly arranged my ingredients on its shelves. While it was no match for my lab at Hogwarts, at least there was room enough without the need for Expansion charms. And it was all mine.

When Hermione returned, she was beaming.

"Guess what! I mentioned to Neola that we were in need of furniture, and she told me that her niece runs a resale shop in Sioux Lookout!"

"Oh?" I said neutrally. I didn't really want to go to Sioux Lookout to look for furniture, having had my fill of civilization for a good long while. It didn't matter that Sioux Lookout wasn't a city. It was still too big for my tastes.

"We could check it out."

Apparently the look in my eyes gave away my reluctance without me saying a word. Hermione sighed at once.

"Fine. We can go without you, as long as you trust me to choose things you won't complain about."

"It's just that I wanted to start up the Peace-and-Pepper again. You know that I can't leave it brewing untended for long." The excuse sounded lame even to my ears. Wait… "'We'?"

"Neola's husband, Stanley, has a pickup truck. She volunteered him to drive us into Sioux Lookout. That way, we can carry furniture back in the truck."

"But you're a witch," I pointed out. "You know perfectly well that you don't need a truck to carry anything."

"I know, Severus, but Neola doesn't know that. And she's so happy that we have our own place that I think she really wants to do something to help."

I wanted to say that we'd done just fine without help up until now, but the truth was that the people of Trapper's Bay were my client base. If you looked at it that way, it behooved me to be gracious and allow Stanley to take my wife to Sioux Lookout.

"Are you sure you don't mind if I stay here?" I decided it wouldn't hurt to demonstrate my willingness to be flexible. As long as Hermione didn't decide that she would really rather I come along to give my input on her selections.

"I don't mind, Severus. Really. I know you've been dying to start on Peace-and-Pepper again. But before anyone goes to Sioux Lookout," she added, "we need to finish up the road. Stanley needs to be able to bring the furniture directly here."

A good point. We'd already been taking it in turns to blast short stretches of trees out of the ground, and were halfway to the town road by now. And so we increased our efforts – which meant I had less time to start Peace-and-Pepper – and concentrated on the task at hand. In another week the road, which was basically just a strip of non-vegetation, was finished, and Hermione notified Neola that she was ready to visit Sioux Lookout any time Stanley was available. The following morning, a red pickup truck roared up the new road, the engine belching diesel fumes and fracturing the peace and quiet of the lake. I was doubly glad Hermione hadn't insisted on my going along.

Stanley Dorsey climbed out of the cab. He was the male equivalent of his wife: rather round and squat, with a long, dark braid falling down his back. He stopped short, staring in amazement at the cabin.

"You're kidding me, Sebastian. This place has been here all this time? How come no one knew about it?"

"It sat unused for many years," I began, but Stanley interrupted me.

"Yeah, but it looks pristine! Who'd you say your contractors were? They did a fabulous job!"

"Small business out of Toronto," I said vaguely. I was ready to cast a Confundus charm if many more questions arose, but just then Hermione emerged from the cabin.

"Stanley, good morning! This is so nice of you to help us. Would you like a cup of coffee before we head out? I know there's at least a cup left in the pot."

While it was commendable of my wife to play hostess, I didn't want to encourage Stanley to linger and ask more nosy questions about the cabin. Fortunately, Stanley had already had his caffeine for the morning, and he and Hermione soon departed.

They returned three hours later. As soon the truck came to a stop, Hermione hopped out, her eyes shining.

"I found some wonderful things," she gushed.

I eyed the piles of furniture and boxes in the bed of the truck; it looked like stacks of junk to me, but I held my tongue. Peace-and-Pepper was not the only thing I had brewing; a headache had begun working its way up from the base of my skull that morning, and now felt like a set of claws had settled into the back of my head. It wasn't helped by the fresh diesel fumes that hung in the air.

"Ready to move some furniture, Sebastian?" Stanley demanded heartily. "You wife's quite the shopper!"

Was that a compliment or not? I wanted more than anything to tell Stanley to unload the truck and let us take care of it from that point, but explaining why and how my pregnant wife could easily move a couch into the cabin was not an option. Headache or no, Stanley and I began emptying the bed of the truck and transferring the contents inside.

There were three dusty carpets of undetermined color, a sofa (ratty, I thought), an upholstered chair (equally ratty), a battered wood dining table with six chairs (why in Merlin's name did we need six chairs?), a mattress and box springs (no telling what it might be infested with), assorted boxes, and some slatted wooden panels which looked to have no purpose whatsoever. But Hermione seemed to know exactly how and where she wanted everything, so I had no choice but to withhold judgment for now.

By the time Stanley drove off, I was ready to cut my head off for some relief. Hermione began to explain, in detail, about each little thing she'd bought and why.

"What's wrong?" She interrupted her monologue to stare quizzically at me.

During the time I have lived in the North Woods, I have dealt with the issues of my past. I will never be congenial or mellow, but at least I'm no longer surly and bitter.

Except for right now, when all I wanted was to take a pain remedy and work on the base for the Peace-and-Pepper.

"Save your breath," I snapped. "You can explain why we spent good money on all this rubbish later!"

And even as I stalked out of the cabin, I knew I was in deep trouble.

….

I Disapparated to Lawford's cabin, where I downed a hefty dose of Soothing Solution and stretched out on the bed. I dozed off for half an hour or so and awoke feeling much improved. Deciding that I should probably face Hermione's wrath sooner rather than later, I returned to the new cabin. The door to the screened porch squeaked a noisy welcome when I pulled it open. I'd been a little annoyed by this quirk when I first discovered it – after all, weren't we paying the three old coots to fix things like this? – but Douglas Dinsmore had laughed at my complaint.

 _"It's a mark of character, Severus. That's what screen doors do."_

"Hermione?"

There was a faint noise from the bedroom. I walked toward that room but discovered that my wife was not in our bedroom, but in the second bedroom. She was kneeling in the middle of the floor, surrounded by the strange slatted panels I had noticed earlier and looking utterly frustrated.

"What?" She eyed me coolly.

"I apologize for my behavior earlier," I said quietly. "I had a wicked headache. I should not have taken it out on you."

There was a long pause before Hermione grudgingly muttered, "Apology accepted. Are you feeling better?"

"Yes. I took a Soothing Potion and slept for a while." I motioned toward the panels. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to put the crib together. At the shop, they said it snaps together, but I can't figure out how yet."

A crib. I felt even guiltier for my outburst.

"Would you tell me what you wanted to explain earlier? About the things you bought?"

Hermione nodded and climbed to her feet. When she did so, the swell of her abdomen was more noticeable than ever.

"Look, Severus, I know that some of the things I bought are in rough condition. But with Reparo and some thorough cleansing charms, I think everything will be okay. And if there's something you really hate, we'll get rid of it, all right?"

"I'm sure it will all be fine," I said, now ready to embrace every last piece of junk. "Show me the things you bought."

She led the way into the living room, or what I had once heard someone refer to as a great room. The name was nonsensical, I thought; the 'Great Hall', at Hogwarts, made sense. A 'great room' in a house, in my opinion, merely meant that someone had forgotten to put up the walls between the living room, dining room, and kitchen.

During my absence, Hermione had laid out the carpets in the living and dining areas and artfully arranged sofa, chair, dining table and chairs. The effect was not displeasing, but everything still appeared quite shabby.

"Like I said," Hermione began, "this can all be mended and cleaned. It just won't appear brand-new."

She aimed her wand at the sofa, where a spring had worked its way through a tear in the back cushion. One flick and the spring sprang back at once and the fabric mended itself.

"I don't like the color, particularly," she continued.

"Nor do I." I found the sickly sea foam green revolting.

"But the good thing is, there were these nice, neutral slipcovers made for it, Severus," Hermione said, pointing to a lump of white fabric on the floor. "Those will be easy to keep clean with magic."

Several thoughts assailed me. The first was the memory of some horrid, lumpy slipcovers my mother had bought to cover our own ratty sofa on Spinner's End; they'd never fit correctly, were a ghastly floral pattern, and only served to shout that the Snapes were the next thing to impoverished. The second was that with a baby in the offing, it was a good thing that magic rendered cleaning up messes quite easy. Hermione, meanwhile, had moved to the dining table and demonstrated a Reparo on a nearly splintered chair leg.

"And," she said, moving to the kitchen where boxes of stuff sat waiting, "I found some several nice pots and pans and other cooking items. And some plates and silverware, of course. They don't match, of course, but I didn't think you'd mind."

"I don't," I agreed hastily. And nice pots and pans would be wonderful for our cooking pasttime; some of Lawford's pots had been badly dented, and the skillet tended to scorch anything and everything unless carefully tended.

Hermione was looking at me now with earnest hope in her brown eyes. It occurred to me that I had not only insulted her purchases earlier, I had also insulted her ability to make good choices. Of course, she had chosen to marry me, which called her common sense into question somewhat.

"If we work together," I said, "I'm sure we can get quite a lot cleaned and repaired by suppertime."

"And have a try at putting the crib together?" she asked eagerly.

"And putting the crib together." I gathered my wife into my arms.

...

 _Author's Note: I really should stop binge-watching episodes of Fixer Upper._


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5: The Long Winter**_

One day in November, we were thoroughly cleaning Lawford's cabin, model exiting tenants that we were, when one of Brady's buyers stopped in to say hello. Steven Wilby was a pleasant enough man whom I vaguely recalled coming out to fish with Lawford some years earlier. He had plenty of stories to share about their past exploits and regaled us with some rather embarrassing tales, most of which occurred before Brady met Marita. Then he showed us the official plans for the fishing lodge development and apologized for forcing us out of our home.

"I'm sorry that you had to move, Sebastian," he said, not looking a bit sad about it. "I know Brady thinks very highly of you."

"Don't be. We have our own home now, and it's quite comfortable. Things have worked out splendidly."

And it had. Hermione had worked both wand and fingers to the bone cleaning and repairing all of her thrift store purchases while I spent my time wrestling once more with Peace-and-Pepper in the new lab. It seemed that every time I walked into the cabin, I could hear ' _Scourgify!'_ ring out. She'd even resorted to buckets of soapy water if repeated attempts using magic didn't meet her stringent standards. In the end, the results were surprisingly satisfactory. The furniture had been given new life, and if it didn't look pristine, it was at least was sound and spotless. Even the sofa slipcovers, which I expected would look hideous at best, fit well enough. Nothing matched, but everything went together in a pleasing sort of way.

We had also wrestled the balky crib into submission. When it was done, Hermione and I stood staring at the result of our combined efforts and tried to envision a baby sleeping there. The idea still seemed surreal to me, although according to my wife's ever-expanding figure, it would soon become much less so. After trying to make do with charms to alter her usual garb, Hermione finally made a foray into Thunder Bay for maternity clothing. Her body, she had discovered, was changing in ways she never expected.

"I knew I'd lose my waist in front, but no one told me I'd lose it at the sides!" she wailed one night as she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

"It's only temporary," I soothed, but I still remembered Neola's comment about never getting back the same body as before pregnancy.

Hermione seemed somewhat appeased, but glared over the injustice of my own body remaining intact.

...

Winter was spent debating baby names.

I had seen enough students over the years in my Potions classroom to have firm opinions on what name I would allow for my own child. I know that the wizarding world – in Britain, anyway – simply adore their classical names; if it hadn't been for the ancient Greeks and Romans, I don't know what they would have been reduced to using. Leonard Malfoy? Floyd Flitwick? Not to mention my own atrocious name, which Hermione timidly suggested in the event of a son.

"Are you mad? The world doesn't need two Severus Snapes!"

Weasley-associated names were out, of course, and Hermione knew better than to suggest 'Harry' as a potential choice.

"If it's a boy, what about naming him after your father?" I asked her.

"Hugh?" She made a face. "It would be all right as a middle name, I suppose, but Dad hated his name and I guess that made me not care for it either."

"Why didn't he like being named Hugh?"

"He said that he was teased a lot at school for being quite brainy –"

"Imagine that," I said drily. Hermione glared at me.

"Let me finish. Instead of calling him Hugh, the bullies called him 'Eww'. And apparently stretched it out into multiple syllables, at that."

"Inventive," I commented without thinking, "but you know that bullies can take just about any name and transform it into something revolting."

"True. What about girls' names? Would you like your daughter to be named 'Eileen', after your mother?"

I frowned. "Why would I wish to do that?"

I could tell by her expression that Hermione hadn't expected my bluntness. I tried to explain.

"You know that my mother was not very nurturing by nature," I reminded her, frowning. "She tried to be, but usually failed. And her worse sin was failing to stand up for me against my father. Of course, she never stood up for herself, so why should she stand up for me? I don't remember her fondly, Hermione."

Hermione shook her head. "I'm sorry. Forget I asked."

"Don't apologize. I came to grips with my parents' deficiencies long ago."

"I suppose we could name a girl after someone who was on staff at Hogwarts..."

"Who? Pomona? Poppy? Septima? Your owl is already named Minerva, and if you think I could bear another Sybil, you're wrong. Which reminds me: no flower names, please."

Assorted midwives made increasingly frequent visits, each time pronouncing Hermione in outstanding health. The most recent left a book for Hermione to read, entitled 'Giving Birth to Your Child: It's Magical!'. In addition, various Muggle books had begun turning up in our grocery bags when we returned from store in the general store, books which Neola and other women in town decided were of utmost importance for Hermione to read: 'What to Expect When You're Expecting', 'Your Baby's First Year', and 'Relaxation for Pregnant Women'. Hermione read them all before leaving them lying about the cabin as if hoping I'd take an interest and pick one up myself. I will admit to glancing through them, although much to my distaste, they seemed heavily slanted towards both mother and baby bodily functions. I also glanced at the relaxation book and wondered why they didn't have 'Relaxation for Expectant fathers'.

Everyone in Trapper's Bay was dying of curiosity about the new cabin, of course. Every time we went into town, I could count on at least one thinly-veiled hint from someone wanting to see our new home. Hermione proposed holding an open house, which I resisted vehemently; I did not want anyone traipsing around on our land unless they had been personally invited. She pointed out that the purpose of the open house _was_ to invite people to traipse around, and presumably once everyone had seen it, they would be satisfied.

I finally relented, and Hermione posted a notice on the General Store Community News Board that anyone who wished could come to visit our new home the third Saturday in January between the hours of twelve and two. And then I put hefty Disillusionment and Muggle-repelling charms on the Potions lab.

I should have expected that more was required than merely letting people peek in the door for five minutes. Hermione spent the morning in a frenzy of making sandwiches and filling our few odds-and-ends of bowls with snacks for the visitors. I wondered if this was typical for an open house, but since my entertainment skills are truly nonexistent, I chose to keep quiet and help my wife cut the sandwiches into small portions and line them up on our four mismatched plates. It began snowing heavily, and I rather expected that all these preparations would be for naught; surely no one would be silly enough to take us up on our invitation in this weather. But at five minutes before noon, I heard the sound of multiple cars, trucks and snowmobiles approaching. Within ten minutes, it seemed that everyone in town had shown up, although Hermione estimated that the number was closer to forty. Our food disappeared in short order and we finally resorted to cutting into a chocolate cake that Neola had brought as a house-warming gift.

"You're a lifesaver, Neola," Hermione told the woman as she sliced the cake into tiny servings. "We didn't say anything on the advert about snacks being served. I can't believe everything's virtually gone already."

Neola chuckled. "You forget I see how much food disappears from my store shelves every week. Plus, people just assume that if there's a get-together of any kind, there will be food."

The remnants of my cynical side agreed; people would show up for anything if free food was involved. On the other hand, I had to admit that everyone seemed genuinely interested in our new home and – quite unnervingly – in us as well. I had never been more than coolly reserved during my dealings in town, business-sort of arrangement that it was, yet the townspeople were always cordial toward me. And when Hermione had arrived, with her unending curiosity about the Ojibwa culture, she was also well-received. It had never occurred to me until this Saturday afternoon that I had long ago been accepted into the community as something more than the odd, intense man who bartered his potions at Neola Dorsey's store.

By the time two o'clock arrived and the miscellaneous vehicles had all trundled back to town, we had received an offer of assistance in building a dock come spring, baby-sitting for what I was told was a very reasonable price, and all the hand-me-down baby items we could ever hope to need.

In what was a monumental shift for me, I decided that perhaps keeping my land warded and Muggle-protected was, quite possibly, overkill.

….

As winter marched towards spring, an explosion of knitting began.

Hermione found a pattern book in town along with needles and yarn, and before long we were awash in booties, sweaters, caps and blankets of all kinds. I was intrigued.

"Were the stories true? Did you actually knit hats for the house-elves?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Then donated baby items began arriving in a steady stream. I had expected a few items of clothing, perhaps some rattles or stuffed toys. Nothing prepared me for the onslaught of baby-related items that appeared every week.

One cold February day, I was walking back to the cabin from the lab when Stanley Dorsey pulled up in his red pickup truck. A young woman climbed out of the passenger side while Stanley headed for the back of the truck.

"Mr. Snow? I'm Tabitha, Stanley's niece. I own Twice is Nice, the resale store in Sioux Lookout."

"How do you do?" I said. I probably should have told her to call me Sebastian, but the woman lived fifty miles away. It was enough to be on a first-name basis with the locals.

Just then, Stanley handed me the large box he'd retrieved from the truck. It overflowed with what were, judging by the bright primary colors, more baby things.

"What now?"

"Essentials," Stanley said. "I hate to be the one to break it to you, Sebastian, but babies need more gear than the Army, Navy and Air Force combined."

"Why? They're tiny."

"Yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't you?"

"I've been keeping an eye out for things for you," Tabitha told me, looking quite pleased with herself. "Someone just donated a large load of baby stuff to the shop the other day. I picked out the best pieces."

I pulled a multi-colored, plastic four-legged item off the top of the pile. "What in the world is this for?"

"It's a baby gym. Oh, there's Hermione. Hi, Hermione!" Tabitha suddenly spotted my wife, who had just come out onto the porch. She headed in that direction, leaving Stanley and me to wrestle with the mysterious contents of the box.

"Why would a baby possibly need a gym?" I spluttered.

"Entertainment. And it stimulates their brains or something," Stanley shrugged. "What you do is, you place this frame thingy over the baby when he's lying on this mat, –" he rummaged around in the box and pulled out a brightly-colored blue pad, " – and see, there's little gizmos on it for the baby to play with." He poked a finger at a yellow rattle suspended from one of the legs.

I prodded a stuffed elephant, also suspended from a leg, feeling utterly at sea. "And it's necessary for babies to have this?"

"Well, it is if you want fifteen minutes to yourself. On the down side, once babies start sitting up and crawling, they're too big to use it."

"You mean it's only good for a year or so?"

Stanley guffawed. "As if. Six months, maybe. Then you need more stuff to take its place."

I must have looked stunned, for the man's grin stretched even wider. "Don't worry, Sebastian. You'll find out."

'You'll find out' seemed to be the ongoing theme. Any time I was in town and someone mentioned the baby, there were knowing grins all around, as though everybody in the world, save me, was in on a vast secret. Hermione noticed it as well.

"It's not that they're unkind about it," she said. "It's just annoying. Of course we have no idea what to expect when the baby comes, do we? I wish someone would just sit us down and say, 'Look, here's what it's going to be like'. At least Ginny doesn't come across like that in her letters."

Until sixteen months ago, Ginny Potter and her mother had been at odds with Hermione, separated by misunderstandings that occurred when my wife divorced the ailing Ronald Weasley and moved to Canada. Ginny and Hermione had mended the fences when Hermione returned to Britain for Weasley's funeral, but Molly was bitter still. The only thaw in the frosty relationship with her former daughter-in-law was the gift of a jar of homemade jam some seven months ago.

"She doesn't 'come across like that' that you know of," I pointed out. "For all you know, she may be smirking every time she puts quill to parchment."

"No, I don't think she is."

Ginny's letters, with her hints about pregnancy and birth and childcare, cheered Hermione every time they arrived. Lately, however, my wife had become a little more pensive after each one.

"You miss your friends," I deduced astutely.

"Well, yes. A little. Some."

"What, then?"

Hermione looked at me with worried eyes. "Severus, I love our life, you know that. And I'm so excited for the baby to come. It's just that I feel really lonely sometimes, like I'm the only pregnant witch for miles around."

"You probably are." The words were out before I could stop them, and I could immediately see that they were in no way helpful.

"That's just it," she agreed. "I wish I had another witch to talk to. It feels like Ginny's my only lifeline to that world."

"You went to Thunder Bay for that lecture about preparation for childbirth, the one the midwife told you about. You met other pregnant witches there, surely."

"I did, but it was hard to get to know someone before or after class. It seemed like everyone rushed in at the last minute and left just as quickly when it was over."

"There is more than one class, isn't there?"

"Yes, there's another one next Tuesday."

"Perhaps you'll have more time then," I said.

"Perhaps." She didn't look convinced.

The following week, Hermione returned from the lecture to report that refreshments were served before and after class, and that she had diligently used the time getting to know some of the other mothers-to-be.

"Well, there you are then," I said, pleased. But my wife still looked troubled.

"But none of them live around here. It's not as though we'll be getting together for tea and playtime once the babies arrive."

My patience was beginning to wear thin. "Hermione, what do you want? We don't live in an area where there are wizards and witches on every corner. There are barely any corners to begin with!"

"I know that," she snapped.

"What, then? There may not be an abundance of witches, but aren't there any pregnant women in town? And surely Stanley's niece Tabitha can put you in touch with young mothers in Sioux Lookout, the ones that donate all that – that stuff that's stacked up in the nursery. You're perfectly capable of making friends!"

With that, Hermione's eyes filled with tears. She marched out of the cabin, slamming the door behind her.

I cursed inwardly. The Hormone Thing had reared its ugly head once more, and we still had six weeks to go before the baby arrived. If I had to look forward to another month and a half of mood swings like this… Life would settle down when the baby came, I told myself, and decided to let Hermione stew for five minutes before I went looking for her. I found her at lake's edge, hunched miserably on a fallen log.

"Hermione, it's cold out here and you have no coat on. Come inside."

She looked up at me with reddened eyes. "Do you know what I feel like?"

I hated guessing games. "No, what?"

"I feel like I did my first two months at Hogwarts, when I couldn't make friends to save my soul."

"Don't say that you memorized the childbirth books and showed up those other women in class," I tried to joke.

"Very funny!"

I ignored her look of filthy disgust and and sat down next to her on the log. No, humor was not sufficient at this point. I chose to use cold reason. The old Severus Snape would not have bothered, period.

"I can't believe that they mean to be unfriendly. Perhaps they're merely so absorbed in their own pregnancies that they're not much interested in reaching out," I said, then added: "which is their loss, of course."

Hermione sighed and sank her head onto my shoulder. "Is that what I am? Absorbed in my pregnancy?"

I entwined the fingers of one hand with hers. "Of course you're absorbed, and rightfully so."

"I miss my mother, Severus. I wish I could call her for advice, or just to talk."

I thought of Hermione's parents, ruthlessly targeted and murdered by Death Eaters in the final year of the war.

"I know she would have been here for you, had things worked out differently." Which was more than I could have said of either of my parents.

"Yeah." Hermione brushed a tear away. "I'm sorry I've been so emotional lately. I know I'm a mess. You've been more patient with me than I could have ever dared hope."

"Your hormones are probably all over the map right now. As long as you don't kick me out of the house, I'll consider myself a lucky man."


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6: Spring**_

Spring arrived and April first drew ever closer.

Stanley showed up in his red truck again, but this time there were no boxes of other people's cast-offs. instead, a rocking chair, sporting a large yellow bow, sat proudly in the back.

"What's this?" I asked, walking out to meet him.

"Rocking chair," Stanley announced, swinging out of the cab.

"Obviously."

Hermione joined us outside. "For us? Who's it from?"

The man hoisted the chair out of the truck and placed it on the ground.

"The Lawfords sent it," Stanley answered, looking rather guilty. "Sorry. The card fell out of the envelope when the chair was unloaded at the store."

She took the slightly crumpled envelope that Stanley pulled out of his pocket and read the sentiments. "'Best wishes from Brady and Marita Lawford. Let us know as soon as the baby arrives.' Isn't that sweet of them?"

Stanley looked as pleased as if he were the gift-giver instead. "Well, try out the chair, Hermione. You'll be spending plenty of time in it."

Hermione sat, rocking tentatively, a happy smile on her face. "It's perfect!"

The arrival of the rocker marked the beginning of my wife nesting in earnest. She made more forays into Sioux Lookout to the Twice Is Nice store than was absolutely necessary, even though by this time there was nothing that we truly lacked in the new cabin. I had been satisfied with the barest of minimums for many years, and Hermione had been of like mind when she joined me in the North Woods. But there was something about this final stage of pregnancy that compelled her to decorate, to fluff, to tweak our home. Since the end-of-year check from Caldwell Pharmaceuticals had re-padded our bank account almost four months ago, I was more than happy to let Hermione indulge in what she suddenly, absolutely, _had_ to have for the cabin. Provided it was nothing frilly, silly, or pink; I've never quite gotten over Dolores Umbridge.

This meant that I frequently found Hermione standing in the doorway of a room, staring at its contents, in deep thought. It was never a good sign, because it meant that she was getting ready to move or switch or re-position something. The few pots and pans we owned, which had initially rested contentedly in a kitchen cabinet, now had to hang on a pot rack suspended from the kitchen ceiling. Pillows on the slip-covered sofa were arranged just so, and Merlin help me if I failed to replace them at precisely the right angle. The easy chair in the living room moved from one side of the room to the other side three times, which meant it was in my best interests to look carefully before I sat down.

Still, it was more than satisfying to wake up in my own bed in my own home, brew a cup of coffee in my own kitchen, and wander down to my lab to begin the day. The latest attempt at the Peace-and-Pepper potion was progressing nicely; nothing had exploded yet, and I was sure that this time I would succeed. At least, according to my professional journals, no one else had had any luck so far, so I still held out hope that I could beat the other wolves to the patent.

For safety's sake, I insisted that Hermione stay out of the lab now that the Peace-and-Pepper work was up and running. Accidents were always a possibility, and it made me uncomfortable any time I found her in there, peering into my cauldrons.

"Severus, I'm not fragile," she snapped after I'd told her to get out. "Pregnancy does not preclude working in a lab, you know."

"I know that, and I also know that as a Potions Mistress you are utterly qualified to be in here. It's not Hogwarts, where I was lucky to get through a day with only one explosion."

"Then what's the problem?" Hermione looked utterly fetching with fire in her eyes and one hand on her swollen abdomen.

"The problem is that you are my wife and you are carrying my child," I said. "I do not intend to spend any portion of the remainder of my life without you, and I would prefer it if you were in one piece!"

She made a wry face, but I believe she enjoyed the notion that the evil Professor Snape had turned into someone who was actually capable of love.

In truth, I did not know what I would do without her.

….

April first came and nothing happened, much to Hermione's chagrin. She struggled getting in and out of chairs and complained that there was no position comfortable for sleeping. She sent a message to the midwives via her Patronus, asking for reassurance now that her due date had come and gone. Their return message was almost cheerfully blasé, informing her that they would give it five more days before considering any intervention to speed things along.

I've never seen anyone attempt to curse a Patronus before.

….

Every night I went to sleep, expecting Hermione to wake me and say that her contractions had begun. And every morning I awoke to the same grouchy expression on her face. That was certainly the case on April fourth, when I had my breakfast and headed for the lab. It was time for me to add the second of the three final binders to the Peace-and-Pepper, followed by constant stirring for an hour. I would need to add the third binder in eighteen hours, and it was that final step which would spell success or failure.

It was a beautiful morning with hints of spring in the air. As I added binder number two and stirred away, I dwelt on the happy notion of a letter arriving from the Ministry, confirming that I had won the patent for Peace-and-Pepper. All I had to do then was wait for Caldwell – and probably a half-dozen other companies, not necessarily limited to Canada – to beg me for the right to produce my potion. The vision ended with Nor-Ams and other assorted currency raining down upon my head.

When my hour of stirring was completed, I headed back up to the house to check on Hermione. I found her pacing the floor, her nose in one of the pregnancy books; the others were piled up close at hand.

"That's the second binder done," I told her, then frowned. "Why don't you sit down? I know sitting's not necessarily comfortable, but it has to be better than prowling about, doesn't it?"

"I don't want to sit," she said, not looking up from her book. "Walking is supposed to be good for you in the first stage of labor."

It took a very long moment for me to comprehend what she'd just said.

"You're in labor?" I choked out.

"Yes. It started a little over an hour ago."

I had expected her to notify me immediately when labor began; to find her calmly reading took me aback.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I blurted.

Hermione shrugged. "It could have been false labor, and I would have gotten your hopes up for nothing."

"And is it false labor?"

"No, it doesn't seem to be. I wanted to time the contractions for a while before I summoned the midwife. And besides, it gave me a chance to read through all the information again." And with that, she gasped and clutched the back of the oft-relocated chair as a contraction struck. Her book clattered to the floor.

"Damn it to Merlin's piss pot!" I bellowed. "Do you _have_ to turn to a book every bloody time, woman? You can't even give birth without looking it up first?"

But Hermione's attention was on the contraction, and not knowing what else to do, I clutched her shoulders as the pain continued for what seemed like an eternity. Finally…

"Six minutes apart." She straightened up, her smile wavering a bit. "I'm a bit surprised that the contractions are this strong so early on. I thought they'd be a lot milder to start. "

"I'm summoning the midwife," I snapped, wand already in my hand.

"Severus, wait."

"Why?" I demanded angrily.

"It's just this is the last time we'll be alone, just you and me. I wanted to say that I love you, and I know we didn't plan this baby, but – it'll be a marvelous adventure, won't it?"

I looked into her earnest brown eyes and my expression softened. I cradled her face in my hands. "Yes. It will. You'll be a wonderful mother and our child will be brilliant. I love you to the moon and back, Hermione, but can I please summon the midwife now?"

"Wait."

"What? Why?" I hissed as my five seconds of patience ran out.

"Do you know where to send the Patronus?"

I had to admit that I did not, other than having a vague notion of sending it to 'midwives in Thunder Bay'. Hermione grinned at my hesitation and produced her own wand and Patronus, relaying the information that labor had started along with the length of time between contractions.

Within five minutes, the midwife had arrived. To Hermione's relief she was one of the friendlier ones who had visited off and on over the past months. But while Barbara was the round, motherly sort, she was also quite bossy, and after examining my wife, announced that the birth was still a very long way off. She instructed me to take Hermione on a long walk outside while she set out supplies and prepared the bedroom.

"A walk?" I blurted. "What if something happens?"

"Nothing will happen, Sebastian. May I call you Sebastian?" Barbara smiled winningly.

I wanted to say, No, absolutely not. But just then Hermione was stricken with another contraction, and my attention was diverted elsewhere.

"You want her to go outside and walk in this condition?" I couldn't believe my ears.

"It's good for your wife to walk for as long as she's comfortable. Believe me, it will help things along a bit."

"But –"

"Severus," Hermione said wearily, "don't argue. Just get my coat and help me to the door."

I did as I was told, but I was still fuming.

By the time we had made thirty laps of the cabin – pausing each time a contraction hit – I was ready to scream. Shouldn't giving birth have been improved somewhere along the line? Hadn't something been invented to shorten the process? I voiced all these thoughts aloud to Hermione, who glared at me and told me to shut up if I couldn't say anything helpful.

….

By the time night fell, I was utterly beside myself. Hermione alternated between wanting me at her side and ordering me to get the hell out of the cabin. I tried to putter about in the lab, but there was nothing to do until time to add the third and final binder to the Peace-and-Pepper, some five hours from now. I could have begun brewing something else, I suppose, but I quickly recognized that I was a danger to myself with my current inability to concentrate.

I moved to a chair on the screened porch, but there I could too easily hear Hermione's cries with each contraction. I considered asking the midwife to cast a Silencing Charm, but decided that I would probably receive a lecture about valuing my comfort over my wife's. I then tried sitting at lake's edge for a while, but the sun was almost down and the early spring air was quite cold, and I began to shiver. I don't think I've felt so helpless since finding Lily Potter dead in Godric's Hollow, and that seemed a lifetime ago now.

"Sebastian… or Severus?" The midwife, clearly in a quandary as to which name to use, hailed me from the cabin door. "Hermione will be needing you now."

I raced to the porch. "Is the baby –"

" – here? No, not yet, but things will be happening fairly quickly from now on."

I followed her into the bedroom. Hermione was perspiring and pale, but managed a travesty of a smile for me.

"I can't do this without you, dear heart," she said simply.

I moved to her side and took her hand.

The contractions were much closer together now, as well as much stronger. Each time, Hermione gripped my hand so hard I was sure my bones would break. The baby would be born any second, I just knew it.

After almost an hour of this, I looked accusingly at midwife Barbara. "You said things would be happening quickly now!"

"It won't be too much longer," she soothed.

Suddenly, Hermione gasped. "I have to push!" she cried.

"Excellent!" Barbara beamed. "Pant for a moment, dear. Sev… bastian, why don't you climb behind your wife in the bed now?"

"Behind?" I echoed blankly.

"Yes. I want you to kneel behind her so that she can lean her full weight against you."

She pulled pillows away while I fumbled my way onto the bed and in position behind Hermione. It was odd, it was awkward, and suddenly there was no place on the earth I would rather be than physically supporting my wife as she gave birth.

But still, after twenty minutes, no baby.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, desperate for information. "Shouldn't the baby be here by now?"

"Nothing is wrong at all. Just a bit longer." Barbara, the vision of serenity, had donned a protective apron over her robe and was now plucking several towels and blankets from the bedside table. "Hermione, I want you to listen carefully and push only when I tell you, all right, dear? Sebas – Mr. Snow? Why don't you place your hands on your wife's knees now? Hermione, dear, you get a good grip on his arms."

Hermione nodded and panted, and clutched at me.

The minutes ticked by, the contractions never seeming to end. I swore that if Hermione survived this, I would never trouble her for marital relations again. At least my wife would be alive and we would be –

"Oh, here we go!" Barbara's eyes lit up. "The head is out, dears! And a full head of dark hair it is, too!"

"Really?" Hermione said weakly.

I wanted to peek over her knees and get a closer look, but I was rooted to the spot. Another thirty seconds passed, a minute, a lifetime…

"There we are!" the midwife cried as soon as Hermione had given a final, almighty push. "It's a little boy!"

"A boy!" Hermione said, her voice hoarse with mingled laughter and tears. "We have a son, Severus!"

A son. The word echoed around and around my head and I suddenly felt dizzy with the realization.

As Barbara held the bundle of blanket and towel up for us to see, the baby's first cry echoed throughout the room. It was the cry of life itself.

He was red-face, squalling his indignation at being forced to vacate his cozy nesting place. My son did indeed have a head full of dark hair, and I prayed that he had inherited some of the body from Hermione's wild mane. His eyes, now slitted shut in annoyance at the bright lights, would be a dark blue for now, Hermione told me months ago; given that neither of us had blue eyes, it was highly likely that they would turn brown about a year from now – although whether they would be dark like mine or lighter like his mother's was yet to be determined. I counted: ten fingers, ten toes. And he possessed the correct male anatomy in miniature, which caused me to immediately realize with a start that this was my replacement in the world.

"Here, you hold him," Barbara was saying as she placed our son in Hermione's arms, "and I'll help Severus cut the umbilical cord."

"What?" My brain tried to catch up.

"Just use your wand, dear, and cast a mild Severing Charm between here and here… See?" She indicated the place with her hands.

A wand? I had a wand, didn't I? Somewhere?

"Would you like to use mine?" she asked as I continued to stare at her stupidly.

I snapped to. "No, no, I have it right here." And I pulled it from my pocket, only to find that it was trembling in my hand.

"Here." Barbara gently kept my wand pointed steadily at the right spot while I muttered the incantation.

The cord was cut and my son became an independent, fully-functioning human being. And as I stared into his tiny face, I knew without a doubt that if another Dark Lord ever arose and dared to claim my son's soul for his own, I would cast Avadra Kedavra without hesitation. The term 'malice aforethought' wouldn't even begin to describe my actions.

"What was the name you chose again?" the midwife asked, busying herself with Hermione now.

"Brady," I said, my voice sounding very unlike my own. "Brady Hugh Snow."

….

The next few hours were a blur.

Hermione and I took turns holding our baby, marveling at the little creature that we had produced. At Barbara's encouragement, she had tried putting Brady to her breast, but he clearly wasn't interested yet.

"Not unusual at all," the midwife proclaimed. "He's likely not hungry. Birth is a bit traumatic for baby and it can take a while before he settles in."

And after checking Hermione once more and promising to stop back in tomorrow, Barbara Disapparated.

"We're on our own," I said as the enormity of our situation sank in.

"People do this all the time, right?" Hermione said, although she looked as nervous as I felt.

"You were magnificent," I said, meaning every word.

"I didn't feel very magnificent…"

"How are you? Really?"

"Just tired. That was a lot harder than I expected."

"Amazing that the human race continues, isn't it?" I smoothed Hermione's hair away from her face. "Why don't you try to get some sleep? I'll watch the – Brady."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," she admitted. "What time is it?"

"Quarter past three," I said as she transferred the sleeping baby to my arms.

And I froze. In all the excitement, I had completely forgotten the final binder for the Peace-and-Pepper.

"What's wrong?"

I took a deep breath. "I should have added the final binder over an hour ago."

"It's ruined?" Hermione asked quietly, although she knew the answer.

I nodded. As wonderful as the birth of my child was, my hopes for a large financial windfall had just gone up in smoke.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter 7: Parenthood**_

By the time Brady Snow was a week old, his parents were exhausted.

He had decided that eating every two hours was a fine thing, leaving Hermione to fret that he wasn't getting nearly enough milk each time. A midwife came daily to reassure her, but neither she nor our son was appeased by all the attention. Adding to the frustration, the baby books stated that babies slept most of the time – except our son, of course, who chose to examine his surroundings at all hours with wide, unfocused eyes.

It seemed that our efforts were put into either trying to get Brady to eat or sleep. Hermione was barely able to sleep herself, anxiously tossing and turning, drifting off only just as the baby was waking for the next meal. She had dark circles under her eyes and was tearful much of the time, certain that she was a total failure as a mother, and how could we possibly live through this? All the books in the world had finally failed Hermione Granger Snape/Snow when it mattered most.

I had no idea that so tiny a creature could totally disrupt life as we knew it. I tried my best to comfort Hermione, but I was stumbling in the dark myself. Finally, I did something that I had never in my life believed I would do: I sent a letter to Ginny Weasley Potter, begging her to come to Canada to give Hermione some assistance. I even offered to pay the International Floo Charges, although I knew full well her husband could easily afford the fare.

Meanwhile, I decanted my ruined Peace-and-Pepper into vials and stored them away, unable to bring myself to Vanish it. I would examine it at a later date to see what I could learn from this failed attempt, but only when life had settled down enough to do so without endangering myself.

Nine days after the baby was born, I was there in the lab, staring at the empty cauldrons and wondering if there was any brewing I could attempt while sleep-deprived and fuzzy-headed. Suddenly I heard the nearby crack of Apparition; it was likely the midwife again, but just in case, I peeked out.

And heaved a great sigh of relief. Ginny Potter and – Merlin's rat-nest of a beard! – Molly Weasley stood on the shore of the lake, encumbered with bags and packages in their arms.

"Severus!" Molly spotted me and headed towards the shed at once. "How are you? Goodness, I didn't recognize you without your robes."

I glanced down at my jeans and flannel shirt. "This is what one wears in the North Woods, Molly. I haven't worn robes in many years.' The thought _Nor do I wish to_ went unspoken.

"So you're a father! I can't wait to see the baby! And Hermione, too, of course," she added, although she looked a bit worried about reuniting with the woman she'd been at odds with for so many years. "Do you think she'll be pleased to see me? I just had to come along when Ginny got your letter…"

"You are an experienced mother. She'll be thrilled. Hello, Ginny. Thank you for coming." I nodded to Ginny Potter, who had finally caught up with her mum.

Ginny smiled. "No problem, Severus. I figured if you were desperate enough to write to me, the situation must be pretty bad."

She stumbled a bit over my first name, but I ignored it. "Come inside. It looks like it will pour down at any moment."

We had just reached the porch when Hermione appeared in the door with the baby, looking completely stunned.

"Ginny? Molly?"

"Hermione!" Ginny dropped her bags and ran eagerly up the steps to embrace her former sister-in-law. "How are you? You look terrible! Sorry, but you do, and it's perfectly understandable. Oh, look at the baby!" At once she scooped Brady out of Hermione's arms. "He's beautiful! What's his name? Severus didn't say in his letter."

"Brady. Brady after the wonderful friend who offered a home to Severus for so many years, and Hugh after my father." A beaming Hermione glanced over to Molly, who was hovering at the foot of the steps, clearly unsure of her welcome.

"Hello, Hermione," the woman ventured timidly. "I hope you don't mind that I tagged along..."

"Molly, I'm so glad to see you." Hermione extended a tentative hand toward her, and with that, the years of animosity vanished.

Molly climbed to the porch, and then she and Hermione fell into each other's arms, both of them bursting into tears.

I collected the dropped parcels and bags and sidled past the two women. "Please come in," I murmured to Ginny, who was still holding the baby and looking a bit teary-eyed herself. "I can't begin to tell you how much Hermione will appreciate your presence."

Ginny followed me inside. "I do know how she feels; I've been through it two times myself."

"I can't even imagine."

"Things will get easier, although I'm sure you won't believe me right now." Ginny's eyes shifted from the baby to the cabin's interior. "Your home is lovely, just as Hermione described in her letters."

"She's put her heart and soul into it," I said. "Especially in the last weeks before the baby was born."

"Nesting, right? I did the same thing. The day before Samantha was born, I was climbing around on chairs, cleaning the drapes. Harry was livid when he found out."

Fortunately, Hermione and Molly came indoors just then, still sniffling and dabbing at their eyes, sparing me any further contemplation of Harry Potter's ire.

I Conjured beds for the two women in the loft while Hermione gave them the house tour, then went to town to buy more food for our guests. Neola, who had followed Hermione's first week of motherhood woes with concern, asked after her at once.

"I think she'll be fine, Neola. Some old friends have joined her now, and I believe they're just what she needed."

And they were. By the time I returned home with provisions, Molly had already begun issuing a lifetime of mothering advice to Hermione, who was hanging on every word. Her first act was to help Hermione find a better position for nursing, with the result that the baby seemed to get a fuller belly, which presumably meant a bit longer between feedings. And:

"Forget the silly way that midwife showed you to try to express milk for a bottle," she said briskly. "A simple spell will do the trick much better."

"What spell?" Hermione asked, puzzled.

"Well…" Molly said, a bit sheepishly, "a gentle bit of Expelliarmus, actually."

"Mum!" Ginny looked scandalized. "That's not an approved use for that, you know. If it backfired, -"

"Oh, hush, Ginny. It worked for me, and it worked for you, too. And it's necessary that Hermione manages to get some sleep, isn't it? She can't look after a wee one if she's exhausted herself."

Hermione tried it, and it worked amazingly well. The fact that a bottle of milk was available meant that I could now help with middle of the night feedings, which was fine by me if it meant my wife was able to rest and recover. But I doubted I would ever be able to use Expelliarmus again without an unwanted, vivid mental picture accompanying it.

The women busied themselves unpacking the baby supplies they had brought while I prepared supper. There was not, I was heartened to see, a baby gym in the lot. Molly seemed a bit disappointed that we'd already accumulated a large amount of baby things on our own.

"It's lovely that your Muggle friends have been so generous. Of course," she pointed out, "we brought _wizarding_ baby supplies..."

"A blanket's a blanket, Mum," Ginny sighed. "I don't think Brady will care whether there are owls or moose on his crib linens."

"I know, but still... Here, Hermione: I did bring several little storybooks that the grandchildren have outgrown," Molly said. "I wasn't sure if you still had your copy of this."

Hermione glanced at the book Molly held out to her, and her expression darkened: it was The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

"I don't. I gave my – well, Dumbledore's – copy to the War Archives in Britain, along with that stupid tent and some other things. I didn't want to see any of it ever again." She fingered the book, sighing audibly. "But I suppose Brady should have a copy. It's a traditional wizarding storybook for children, after all."

"A traditional storybook in _Britain_ ," I said quietly, as I sent dinner plates sailing to the dining table with my wand.

My wife looked at the book and at me and nodded thoughtful agreement. "Would you mind terribly if I didn't accept it, Molly? Brady's a Canadian. I'll check into the Canadian storybooks."

Molly opened her mouth as though she wanted to press the issue, but shook her head politely instead. "No, I don't mind."

Ginny looked thoughtful. "Brady's letter will come from Ilvermorny instead of Hogwarts, won't it?

"Don't," Hermione groaned. "I can't imagine him being old enough to go off to school. He's so little!"

It was true. I could barely imagine my son sleeping through the night at this point, let alone climbing aboard whatever transportation took him off to the North American wizarding school.

I announced dinner, and the conversation moved on to other things.

...

"Brady's a good baby," Molly told us after spending the better part of four days cuddling him. "You can tell, you know – when you hold a baby, whether they're jittery or relaxed."

I commented that Brady had every right to be jittery, what with his life in the hands of first-time parents. Molly scoffed at that as well.

"Doesn't matter. They still know when they're loved, don't they?"

"Which of your babies were nervous types, Molly?" Hermione asked, curious. "I bet it was Fred and George."

Molly snorted. "You'd be wrong. Strangely enough, Bill and Percy were quite Nervous Nellies; Fred and George were just as placid as could be."

"That's because they were probably busy plotting mayhem even then," Ginny muttered.

There was a knock at the door. I opened it and very nearly groaned aloud. Of course life wouldn't be complete without Harry Potter popping in to investigate the new Snape child.

"Mr. Potter." My teeth clenched automatically.

"Snape."

Potter had a self-assured air about him, as though showing up uninvited was of no consequence. Force of habit tempted me to try to wipe the smug smile off his face by taking away house points; I reminded myself that he was Hermione's friend and tried to muster a neutral expression.

"Hope you don't mind my showing up like this," Harry continued. "I had a chance to take a few days off and thought I'd see how Hermione's doing."

"You'd better come in and find out," I said resignedly.

"How's fatherhood?" he wanted to know.

"Life-altering."

Potter grinned. "Welcome to the new normal. It's a party, isn't it?"

Party? The upheaval that was our life bore no resemblance to any party I'd ever seen.

"Harry!" Hermione spotted her old friend. I suspect she would have squealed with delight, had Brady not been asleep in her arms at the time.

"Wow, look at him, Hermione," Harry said, admiring the blanketed bundle. "Well done!"

As if I'd had no part of it.

"He seems to have your hair, Snape."

"God forbid," I muttered.

"Although," Potter said, "you don't necessarily end up with the mop you start with. Except for me, probably. I think I was born with my hair sticking out in all directions."

Which brought us perilously close to the subject of the late, lamented Lily. Fortunately, Molly and Ginny began chiming in with their views of babies and hair. Finally, Potter pulled a flat wrapped present out of the pocket of his robes.

"This is for Brady," he announced.

"Harry, that's so sweet of you," Hermione said, repositioning the baby. "Severus, could you open it?"

"You may not think so when you see it," Potter warned. "Believe me, I'll understand if you want to chuck it."

I pulled off the wrapping paper, intrigued now. Inside, I found a child's book whose cover proclaimed, 'The Good Guys Won the War'. "You can't be serious. They have books for children about the war?"

Potter had the decency to look pained. "This is the first one that I've heard about, to be honest. It just hit the shelves day before yesterday, in fact."

"And you bought it?" Ginny looked like she wanted to have words with her husband on the spot.

"Actually, I didn't. Some kind person thought I should have it and dumped it on my desk. I've looked through it, and it's not too objectionable."

I stared at him in disbelief. "You're giving my son a book you didn't even buy and that's 'not too objectionable'?"

The younger man squirmed a bit. "I just thought he might find it interesting some day. At least we don't look too weird in it."

"It's a picture book? There are drawings of us in it?" I blurted.

"Yeah, but like I said, they did a fairly decent job. I think they made Ron's arms too short a couple of times, and your hair's kind of funky on one of the pages, Hermione."

"What?" With that, Hermione thrust Brady into Ginny's arms and flew to my side, whipping the book out of my hands and leafing through it. She gasped aloud. "I would never have worn clothes in that style or that color! And my hair's standing on end! I look a right idiot! And look at you, Harry! You're staring off into space on this page as though you're not paying attention to Voldemort at all! And Severus looks like he's ready to kill you here!"

"Well, they got one thing right," I said drily.

There was a smattering of nervous laughter. Before long, Hermione, Ginny, Molly and Potter were huddled over the book while I took the baby and settled into the rocking chair in the nursery. I wondered: hadn't British parents taught their offspring about the war without the need for someone to writing a book about it? Surely the current generation of witches and wizards had not gone the route of their predecessors, sweeping the war under the rug or talking about it only in hushed whispers, lest saying the words aloud would conjure Voldemort from his grave. Perhaps the author only saw the opportunity to rake in a few galleons...

Which brought up the other issue, the one I'd not cared to contemplate before now: what would my son think of me when he learned the truth about my previous life in Britain?

"I wish I'd been a better man, Brady," I said softly to my sleeping son.

His only comment was a polite snore.

...

The idea of the five of us under one roof would have sent me straight over the edge of sanity at one point in my life, but this time I managed to hang on. The cabin was full of the sounds of baby, conversation, and laughter. By the end of the week, Hermione was more rested, more confident in her mothering skills and, best of all, happy.

Before Apparating away to the International Floo Port in Gander, Newfoundland via Toronto, Molly gripped my hand. I managed not to flinch.

"Now I don't want Hermione to be the only correspondent in this family. _You_ keep in touch as well, Severus. After all, we're all practically family, aren't we?"

Were we? Once I would have recoiled at the idea, but now? Loathe as I was to admit it, there was possibly the tiniest grain of truth there.

Hermione slid her arms around me as the crack of Disapparition echoed across the lake. "Thank you so much, Severus."

"For?"

"For inviting Ginny to come help me."

"You've already thanked me. Every day this week. Possibly twice a day."

"But I'll never forget it. That was the kindest, most generous act I could ever imagine."

I cleared my throat. "Of course, I never mentioned anything in the letter about Potter being welcome…"

Hermione laughed softly. "You're a saint, you know that?"

Well. I'd certainly never been called _that_ before.

….

It was a few days later that I decided to re-investigate the ruined Peace-and-Pepper. I took the vials out of the box I'd stored them in and immediately noticed something odd: instead of the fluid being bright green, it had become crystal clear. And when I fumbled one of the vials and the glass smashed on the counter, I braced myself for the explosion.

None came.

In mounting excitement, I shared the news with Hermione.

"No explosion?" she repeated, mystified. "But without the final binder…"

She left unsaid what we, as Potions Masters, knew full well: that without the final binder, a potion was completely unstable.

"What if," I posited, "a combination potion doesn't require a third binder? What if it requires nothing more than time alone in the dark as the final step?"

Hermione stared at me, her mind obviously racing through the possibilities. "Do you think that's why no one's had any success so far? We've simply been processing it like was would any other potion?"

"I'm thinking that's a distinct possibility."

"What do you have in mind? Are you going to start a fresh batch?"

"Yes, but... What if I submitted a patent request now? Just to claim that combination potions are completed with only two binders and dark storage? I'll definitely start a new batch, but if I already held the patent on this different method of brewing -"

"- and held on to it in case someone else thinks they've cracked the potion in the meantime?"

I could tell by the excitement in Hermione's eyes that I might just have stumbled onto something very, very good.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter 8: North Star**_

As Hermione pointed out one day, babies were everywhere that spring and summer. Tiny fawns, following their mothers through the woods. A young moose, drinking in the shallows on the far shore of the lake. Loon chicks, perched on their parents' backs as they cruised the waters.

"It's wonderful, isn't it Severus? It's rather like we're part of the cycle of nature this year."

Any other time, I would have scoffed at my wife for a silly flight of fancy; this time, I had already made the same connection myself.

It seemed that Brady was growing in front of our very eyes, as evidenced by the fact that his scrawny little bird legs had become chubby and sturdy. He slept through the night by the time he was two months old, much to our relief. He smiled indiscriminately at everybody and everything, displaying a personality that was all his own. Business at the general store always came to a screeching halt whenever we put in an appearance in town; Neola absolutely had to fuss over her 'adopted _nooshenh',_ and would leave customers waiting in the lurch if Brady was in her arms. She asked us if, when Brady began talking, he could call her his adopted ' _n_ _okomis'._

"That would be wonderful," Hermione said, quite pleased. "He already adores you, you know."

"You think?" Neola looked hopeful, but it was clear from the grin on my son's face when she smiled at him that there was mutual adoration. "You know," she said thoughtfully, "there will be a naming ceremony held sometime in the fall. Don't you think Brady should have an Ojibwa name?"

"But he's not Ojibwa," I pointed out needlessly.

"No, but you and Hermione are part of our community, which means Brady's part of the community, too."

Hermione beamed. "That would be wonderful, Neola! I've read all about the ceremony, of course, but I never dreamed that Brady could take part in it."

"Then it's settled. I'll find out the exact date and ask Tom Cooper to find a name."

I frowned. "Tom Cooper? The teacher?" The man taught at the local primary school, and thought rather highly of my Soothing Potion after long days in a classroom with seven- and eight-year-olds.

"He's an Elder. He'll be the one to do the ceremony, plus he has a real knack for coming up with just the right name. And it's better to do it sooner rather than later, because the name will be close by."

"What do you mean, 'close by'?" I asked, mystified.

"When a baby's just come from the Spirit World, the name is easier to find. The older you get, the names tend to float away," Hermione burst in, evidently eager to display her knowledge. Some things never change.

Neola nodded approvingly. "Right you are, Hermione. Now: do you two have sponsors?"

Apparently I looked no more enlightened at that than at the rest of the conversation, because she went on without missing a beat. "Stanley and I would be proud to serve as Brady's sponsors."

Sponsors must be the same thing as godparents, I decided. "That's quite generous," I said, aware that beside me, Hermione was nodding enthusiastically.

"You can invite as many sponsors as you wish," Neola went on, "but it must be an even number of men and women. Many couples ask as many as eight people."

Hermione turned to me at once. "The Lawfords," she said. "They should be sponsors. After all, the baby's named after him."

"You could ask your British friends," Neola said, "but I suppose they live too far away to come for the ceremony."

Hermione looked thoughtful, and I very nearly groaned aloud. Neola had put the notion out there, and I was certain that my wife would be plotting a way to get the Potters back come fall.

...

The headlines in the July issue of _Practical Potioneer_ were large and enthusiastic:

 **Caldwell Pharmaceuticals of Winnipeg Breaks Through: Combination Success!**

...

The August issue of _Practical Potioneer told a different story:_

 **Caldwell Celebrations on Hold: Patent Issues Delay Production**

...

The September issue was even more subdued:

 **Caldwell In Negotiations With Private Brewer**

I framed the page and hung it prominently in the living room. Then I bought a bottle of champagne, and Hermione and I celebrated. We could easily afford it.

...

The van marked Great Camp Fishing Lodge pulled to a stop in front of the cabin on a gloriously golden Sunday in October. I went out to meet it at once.

"Sebastian!" Brady Lawford grinned at me as he eased his way out of the front passenger seat.

He looked older, thinner, and balder, but the smile on his face was the same as always. I shook his hand, realizing that this was the first time I had ever been truly delighted to see my benefactor arrive.

"You look well," I said.

"Liar. I look like something the cat dragged in, but at least I'm alive. What do you think of my new look?" Lawford patted his shiny head.

"Easy to maintain," I deadpanned.

"No kidding. But the hair's starting to grow back a little, and I feel good, and I don't need any more of those chemo treatments."

Marita climbed out of the driver's seat. "Hello, Sebastian. It's so good to see you!"

"And you. Have a good flight?" I knew they'd been flown up from Thunder Bay yesterday, and had spent the night at the new lodge.

Lawford made a face. "That idiot pilot made a horrible landing. I'm surprised we lived through it."

"He's just mad because he wasn't the one at the controls," Marita pointed out with a grin.

"How is the fishing camp coming?" I asked. I had only been down to Brady's old property once since we moved. I was curious as to how construction was proceeding, and two months ago I'd gone to see for myself. The place was a beehive of construction activity as cabins sprang up at lakeside and the main lodge took shape next door to the old A-frame. The constant noise of the Muggle power tools made me thoroughly grateful that construction on our cabin had been relatively quiet, and had taken days instead of months.

"It's turning out great. Eight of the ten cabins are finished, and a big part of the lodge is done. Steve's already had people staying there, family, friends of friends, that sort of thing. There's only limited food service right now, but we've had pretty good meals so far, haven't we hon? Oh, and the cook said there was no problem making yams for us to bring tomorrow for Thanksgiving dinner. Have you seen their new dock? It's huge, and they've got a very nice storage building for the boats and the tackle. Steve said they'll start advertising at Christmastime for next summer. They're going to make a lot of fishermen very happy, I think. And with word of mouth, I bet it'll be a real moneymaker."

Marita interrupted, throwing up her hands. "Can you talk about the lodge later? I want to see the cabin and the baby!"

"Oh, yeah." Brady turned then to look at my home, and his jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me? This is the rundown shack that we sold to you for a buck?"

"I can't believe it! It's looks wonderful," his wife said huskily. "Granddad would have been so pleased to see it come back to life!"

"Come inside and see the rest," I said, leading the way.

We climbed the stairs to the cabin, Brady doing so with only minimal assistance from Marita. Hermione greeted us at the door, her cheeks flushed with excitement.

"Hello! I'm so happy to see you both!" she cried. "Come in! Can I take your coats?"

Our guests craned their necks to take in the cabin interior.

"Wow, look at this!" Lawford enthused as he handed his jacket over to Hermione's care. "Isn't this nice in here, hon?"

"It's so warm and welcoming," Marita gushed. "And your furnishings look just perfect. So eclectic!"

"That would be Hermione's doing," I said. "She found all the pieces and repaired and freshened everything."

Marita headed over to investigate the kitchen. "This is just lovely! There's much more counter space than what you had before."

"We really appreciate that feature," Hermione told her. "It makes life much easier when we're both cooking at the same time."

I noted that my wife was looking ridiculously pleased at the compliments. For someone who had been touted for her intelligence all her life, receiving high praise for her decorating skills was rather out of the ordinary.

Brady was more interested in the repairs that had been done to the structure. "I could have sworn there were big holes in the roof. How long did it take 'em to replace it? "

"Not as long as you would think," I said vaguely.

Lawford shook his head in amazement. "Are you sure they didn't tear this cabin down and rebuild it from the ground up? It looks next to brand new. This is crazy! How many guys were in on the project?"

"Not a lot," I shrugged. I would have had to Obliviate my friends if I'd told them that there were only three full-time workmen whose combined ages totaled three hundred and twenty-six.

By the time the house tour ended at the nursery, Hermione had the baby dressed for the naming ceremony and ready to be presented to the man for whom he was named.

"Ohh," Marita breathed. "He's beautiful! Hello, Brady sweetheart! Look at his pretty dark blue eyes."

"They'll turn brown later, I think. Would you like to hold him?" Hermione asked, pointing to the rocking chair that they had given us. My son gazed at the newcomers with interest.

"Maybe later," she said. "Brady, you should go first."

Lawford looked nervous. "Are you sure? I don't know that I've ever had a way with babies..."

"Believe me," I said, "if I can do this, you can do this."

"Well, okay." Brady senior sat down in the chair and Hermione placed the baby in his arms.

Both Bradys regarded each other.

"Aw, looky there," Brady the elder said, a broad grin splitting his face. "He's a champ, I can tell. Isn't he, hon?"

"Definitely," Marita agreed.

"Another Brady in the world. How about that?" He tentatively tickled the baby's stomach with one finger, and was rewarded with a crowing, toothless laugh. "I think we'll get along fine, this little guy and me."

It was then that I heard the unmistakable crack of Apparition down by the lake. At once Hermione's eyes lit up and she excused herself.

"What was that?" Lawford wanted to know. "Tree limb snap or something?"

I ignored the question.

"Two of our friends from Britain are here, down by the lake. They should be in shortly," I said, my face impassive. I knew all too well that we were being invaded, and braced myself for it. It took less than a minute for Hermione to return.

"Brady, Marita, this are our good friends Harry Potter and his wife, Ginny, from Britain. I was at school with both of them," Hermione said, beaming, "and Ginny came to help me after the baby was born. Harry and Ginny, this is Brady and Marita Lawford."

Hands were shaken and people sized up. Potter, I was pleased to see, was polite and deferential to the Lawfords.

"So," said Brady, still pumping Harry's hand, "have you and Sebastian been friends for a long time, too?"

Potter glanced in my direction, a twinkle of mischief in his eye. "Ages," he told Lawford solemnly. "We go _way_ back."

My wand hand twitched.

Ginny Potter had to fuss over the baby for a few minutes ("He's so big! He's grown like a weed since I saw him last!") before we could all leave for town. Hermione looked worried.

"Do you have the feast plate?" she asked me.

"It's all wrapped up, on the dining table," I reminded her. Why we had to offer perfectly good food to the Spirits was beyond me, but it was part of the ceremony, and therefore we would arrive armed with food.

Hermione surreptitiously conjured an infant carrier and secured it in the Lodge van, and then everyone else jockeyed for seats. I wasn't particularly pleased that we had to travel to town this way, but given the circumstances, there was little choice.

...

A large crowd had gathered at the Community Center, as four children were receiving their Spirit Names on this day. Babies cried, small children ran about, and friends and family visited until time for the ceremony to begin. Hermione introduced the Potters to some of the townspeople; Ginny had already met many of them when she visited before. All in all, it was barely controlled chaos that set my teeth on edge. But at the stroke of four o'clock, Tom Cooper asked for quiet and instructed everyone to form a circle. He then invited the first family for the Naming to stand in the center.

The first child to be named was the baby that had been thrust into Hermione's arms all those months ago at the store. His little sister - the jelly smasher - danced excitedly by the parents' side. Then two more families went forward with their offspring.

We were the last family called. With Brady cradled in Hermione's arms - and our offering of food placed on a blanket on the floor - we stood with Neola and Stanley Dorsey, the Lawfords, and the Potters in the midst of the circle. Cooper announced to our baby his Ojibwa name – _Giiwed'anang_ – and then turned to each of the four compass points to announce it. The townspeople repeated the name after him each time; we were supposed to repeat it as well, but mangled it rather badly. I was sure that Neola would see to it that we would get the hang of it.

"The Spirit World has heard your child's name and now recognizes his face. _Giiwed'anang_ ," Cooper told us, "means 'North Star' in the Ojibwa language. Neither you, Sebastian, nor you, Hermione, came from the North Woods. Your son, however, is a native of these parts. It is fitting that 'North Star' become his name."

He then led the sponsors in their pledges to be a guiding force in Brady's life, and the ceremony was concluded.

...

The following day was Thanksgiving. We shared the meal with the Lawfords and the Potters.

"And you wondered why I bought six dining room chairs?" Hermione asked, teasing.

"We could have conjured extra chairs if we needed them," I said, stubbornly unwilling to concede that she had been right about their usefulness.

It was the first Thanksgiving meal for the Potters, and they enjoyed it thoroughly - as did little Brady, who sat at the table in his high chair, happily cramming small bits of mashed potatoes, yams, and pureed turkey into his mouth.

Yes, there was much to be thankful for.

 _A/N: 'nooshenh' - grandchild; 'nokomis' - grandmother_


	9. Chapter 9

_In Memory of Becky_

 _ **Epilogue: 5 Years Later**_

The lab door opened, shut. I felt the chill of cold air up my back and looked up from my workbench. A pair of warm brown eyes was observing me quite earnestly.

"Dad."

I blinked. When had 'Dad' come into usage? It used to be 'Daddy', a title of which I was quite fond. Second, of course, only to 'Dada', my son's first word. No doubt about it; Brady was getting older. He was five (and almost three quarters, he pointedly told everyone). Another five years, and an Ilvermorny owl would swoop down and deliver a certain letter. How, exactly, was it possible for Time to do this to me?

"Yes?"

"Mum says we need to go," Brady announced, impatiently pushing a lock of curly dark hair from his forehead.

'Mum', not 'Mummy'. I wondered if Hermione had noticed the change in her status as well.

"I don't want to be late," my son continued. "Coach said he needs everyone there on time."

He emphasized the final two words, making it perfectly clear that not only had he paid close attention to the coach, he had inherited Hermione's high regard for rules and regulations as well.

"I'll be right there," I assured him.

"Okay!" Brady scampered out the door and back outside, leaving me to close up the lab. Couldn't keep the coach waiting, could I?

I had known, deep in my soul, that at some point the child would most likely become Quidditch-obsessed. At least that was something I understood.

But _ice hockey_?

Who knew that Hermione and I would trundle our child to Trapper's Bay with a gear bag as tall as he was, then sit shivering in an unheated empty warehouse with a flooded, frozen floor to watch him try to slap a puck around with a dozen other youngsters who could barely stand up on skates? The Pee-Wee hockey games were more entertainment that competition, each child so well padded that the plentiful comic spills didn't hurt anyone. I'm sure that some truly good hockey players emerge from the local youth teams that dot the Canadian landscape, but my son was not likely to be one of them. Neither his mother nor I have an athletic bone in our bodies, and so far it appeared that Brady was carrying on the family tradition. Brady's enthusiasm outweighed his abilities, it seemed to me, but he always gave it a hundred percent and had a good time with the friends he'd made.

A week ago, he'd announced that he wanted to go to school in town come September. This was a low blow for Hermione, who had been teaching him at home thus far and enjoying it thoroughly. Brady was a bright little boy, and it wouldn't have surprised me if he was already beyond the level of the other children his age. Still, I wanted him to develop his social skills; we couldn't keep him home forever.

Brady was already displaying signs of magic, which necessitated The Talk, the one wizarding parents in Muggle territory are forced to give at some point in a young child's life. The one about why we don't brag about magic to children who don't have that talent. The one about why we don't tell people that brooms do more than sweep the dust out of corners. The one about how no, your father will not transform a birch log into a parrot just so your little friends can watch it fly around the house. Brady seemed to take the lectures to heart, and I sincerely hoped that there would be a minimum of awkward damage control in our futures.

Hermione and I had chosen not to add to our family. While we both loved our son to pieces, each of us had come to the conclusion that he was enough. Like his mother and father, Brady Snow would be an only child. We could have afforded more, had we chosen to; Bug-Away was a best-seller year-round, marketed in both northern and southern hemispheres, and I continued to receive hefty checks anytime a new combination potion wanted to hit the market using my patented processing method. We could have expanded our cabin or replaced the secondhand furnishings Hermione had bought, but we chose not to do that either. As with Brady, what we had was more than enough.

"Severus!" There was another wave of cold air as Hermione poked her head into the lab door. "We really need to go!"

"On my way." With a wave of my hand, I lowered the flame under the cauldron where I was experimenting on a more effective Essence of Murtlap. Hopefully, that would become a money-maker somewhere down the road as well.

I threw on my coat and locked the door of the lab behind me. Brady was already waiting at the car, hopping up and down in excitement, Hermione telling him to settle down.

Yes, we had bought a car a few years earlier. While Apparating to the outskirts of town had been easy enough B.B - before Brady - driving into town made avoiding nosy questions about how we got there with a small child much easier. And when parked at the makeshift ice arena, the used Jeep had the effect of making us blend in with everyone else as we unloaded our son's hockey gear. I wondered what both Albus Dumbledore and the Dark Lord would have made of that, their former lap dog eager to appear to live as a Muggle. It was enough to make me grin.

As was the sight of Hermione, an old Gryffindor scarf wrapped around her neck and Brady, sporting a Slytherin scarf grudgingly gifted to him by his Uncle Harry.

"You could have started the car, you know," I pointed out.

"We just wanted to wait for you, love," Hermione said.

I thought about the ways my life had changed, and it all seemed to boil down to this: when Hermione had arrived in the North Woods, I had learned to smile; when Brady arrived, I had learned to laugh.

"Hop in, family," I said.

Car doors opened, slammed shut. I turned the key in the ignition, and we headed for town.

The End

 _A/N: Several things…_

 _While I don't normally care for songfics, I neglected to mention years ago that when writing 'Into the North' that the song "God Bless the Broken Road" seemed a perfect fit. Still does. Check it out if you're not familiar with it. Better late than never._

 _And as I indicated with 'Into the North', some of my information re: Ojibwa culture comes from the website of the For Better or For Worse comic strip (my fave). And apologies to any Canadians and Native Americans for anything I've accidentally gotten wrong._

 _Most importantly, I dedicated "Due North" to Becky Morton Benson, a devoted Severus/Hermione shipper and extreme Alan Rickman fan. Becky was a kind and gentle woman, who had drawn several lovely illustrations for "Into the North". She encouraged me to write a sequel way back when. I only wish I had gotten it in gear and written this story sooner, because Becky passed away in 2015. Whenever new reviews pop up, I'll always wish that one was from her. Rest peacefully, dear Becky._


End file.
